Sea of Lies: An Espionage Thriller (24 page)

“And for the sake of discussion, what would happen if China were unable to comply with these requests?”

“We would have no choice but to cancel Operation Menander, decry the loss of Dr. Farrokhzad and mention in diplomatic channels that sensitive Iranian technology has gone missing in China’s care.”

“Ambassador, don’t think for a moment that any country can blackmail the People’s Republic of China. This meeting is over.” Yi arose, scraping his chair to demonstrate his annoyance.

“Comrade Secretary, let me know where you want the triggers delivered, or be prepared for China’s blueprints for the same to be presented at the next UN Security Council meeting. I’m sure the UNSC would be particularly interested in learning that Iran received the implosion trigger designs from North Korea, which in turn sourced them from China. Good day, sir.”

Yi slammed the door on his way out.

Ghorbani sat at his desk and pondered. Iran was undertaking Operation Menander in order to render its enemies deaf and blind at the time it tested its first nuclear weapon. Ghorbani’s promotion hinged on getting those two triggers repaired by China. One trigger they’d test fire to make certain it worked. The second they’d use to arm a weapon. Whether the test would be underground or on the tip of a Sejil-2 ballistic missile aimed at Israel was something Ghorbani didn’t know.

He prayed it would be the latter.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MISDIRECTION

TUESDAY, MARCH 11, SINGAPORE AND RANGOON

All night Nolan had agonized over what to do with the Fourth Policy. Damaging his marriage was one thing, but handing over state secrets to a lifelong foe was quite another. For him? For his family’s safety? His thoughts churned, and sleep eluded him for hours.

He woke up to the incessant chatter of birds and the crumpled, formerly fresh sheets looking not much different from the ones left on the floor seven hours previously. No baby oil, but certainly a surplus of sweat and anguish.

He felt like hell, but the glimmer of a plan floated just below his consciousness. He would outmaneuver them all one last time.

*  *  *  *  *

The eight o’clock interrogation in Constantine’s anteroom went as expected. Neither the head of security nor the station chief was particularly worried about Nolan’s safety in the wake of the SVR’s putative daylight snatch yesterday. However, they were curious as to why the SVR would bother.

Nolan had learned long ago that the best lies were ninety-five percent true. He said, “Well, it’s one of two things. Either SVR is behind MH370 and working with Teller, or it’s not. And if it’s not, then the only thing I can think of is they found out that I’m close to Mark Watermen and wanted to question me regarding his situation. If that was the case, they could have called and asked to have a cup of coffee.”

Neither man was mollified by these explanations, but Constantine, not having anything better to throw back at Nolan, let him go with a warning to keep his nose clean and assume he was now under Agency surveillance. Nolan dryly thanked them for providing the personal security he’d requested the previous day, and excused himself to attend the task force morning meeting.

Taking the elevator one floor up and walking through the security checkpoint brought him to the biggest conference room. It had the look of a small town newsroom on election night, whiteboards aglow with primary color marker strokes, large-scale regional maps on the walls and two silent TVs running CNN and BBC side by side. His aches and pains from the Airstrip One foray were subsiding, only to be supplanted by various more localized strains due to Millie’s gymnastics. He was too old for any more adventures, outdoors or in.

A well-coiffed Melissa Shook stood at the front of the room; he sat at the rear. Millie scowled at him from mid-table, her efforts spurned to save him a seat. He surveyed the other occupants, recognizing only a handful, and certainly no one of his vintage. Most appeared to be kids on their first overseas tours. Instead of hack newscasters forecasting election outcomes, the people around the table looked like grad students on the second day of classes. Most of them were wearing handwritten sticker nametags.

It was 8:35 when Melissa called the meeting to order. Until 9:15, various Agency and NSA functionaries, along with disembodied speakerphone voices, reported the overnight updates. The most interesting development was that there was nothing new to report. Zip.
Nada
.

He tuned out the Mickey Mouse hour and instead read Al Jazeera’s English language website for a more succinct summary of the MH370 search. Software downloaded in the background and periodically Nolan configured his quirky set of personal hacks and shortcuts to help navigate more swiftly and securely.

Finally the briefings were over, and Melissa asked if there were any questions before the collective split into various clusters tasked with the day’s to-dos. Mercifully, Nolan was unassigned, having missed the inaugural Monday meeting. He hoped no one spoke so he could nip over to the China desk. Before anyone could rise and break his former lover’s spell, his current paramour piped up.

“What about Burma? Bob Nolan saw a guarded airstrip surrounded by a ten-foot chain-link fence. There’s evidence that a large plane landed and took off on Saturday night about the time MH370 could have been there. The DEA investigated and took some samples, which turned out to be radioactive.”

“Yes, yes, Millicent. Thank you for bringing up Bob’s Burma theory. Last night Rangoon COS Matthews, Director of South Asia Policy Analysis Finegold and I spoke. No doubt some interesting things went on in the Irrawaddy Delta, but there’s no evidence that MH370 had anything to do with them.”

Millie bristled. “No evidence? How about four dead, an ex-CIA mercenary in command on the ground, mangosteens—which incidentally are on the MH370 cargo manifest—and the opinion of Bob Nolan, the only one in this room I’m aware of who has a D.I.M., the Agency’s second highest award for valor?”

Melissa and Nolan spoke at the same time, with normally mild-mannered Nolan rising to his feet and finding a voice to match. “Thank you for your support, Ms. Mukherjee. This angle is being explored from Burma and there’s nothing that the task force can or should do at this time. As task force leader Shook said, there’s no evidence of anything more than a large-scale drugs and arms smuggling operation by a violent group. It’s a DEA matter, not a task force issue.”

Melissa nodded silently in agreement. Everyone in the room looked at Millie, who in turn was looking at Nolan with a furrowed brow. Nolan, for his part, stared impassively across the room at CNN, where former tabloid editor Piers Morgan silently mocked another advocate of the people’s right to keep and bear arms.

There was a scrape of chairs and the rustle of papers and laptops as the class adjourned. Millie made her way to Nolan, but Melissa strode up before she could speak. “Lisa Finegold told me you asked to be assigned to my task force. Let me assure you this isn’t something I agree with. As far as I’m concerned, you are
not
part of the investigation.”

One of Nolan’s strengths was staying cool when antagonized, something his adversaries found doubly irritating once they’d lost their own tempers. “Melissa, it’s nice to see you after all this time.”

Melissa turned to Millie and said, “Did your hero Bob tell you how he faked a crime scene to try to turn a suicide into a murder case? That he singlehandedly pushed Singapore-US intelligence cooperation off-axis for over a year? That he specializes in committing adultery with younger colleagues?” Melissa had not planned the onslaught, but she was angry—more at herself than Nolan—for falling in love with him even though he was over fifty and married. Bob was the smartest man she had ever met, a highly decorated CIA officer, and a considerate and enthusiastic lover. But when it mattered most, his legendary composure failed him. Nolan begged his wife's forgiveness and remained mute while others ordered Melissa’s exile. Two and a half years later, Melissa couldn't understand how she had ever been in his thrall, particulary when today she could barely stand having Nolan in her sight.

“That’s quite enough. Hear me out. Assign Ms. Mukherjee to me. We’ll work independently on the Burma angle. You’ll get a copy of everything we produce. We’ll likely skip these briefing sessions, but you permission us to access the databases pertaining to MH370 or Robin Teller. I’m retiring at the end of March, so you won’t have to worry about me after that.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing you arrested before the end of the month. You can save whatever you come up with for Matthews, Constantine and your new DEA friends. I’m not interested, and I don’t want any of that garbage contaminating the project drive. You two will have
Secret
access and no higher.”

“Melissa, I currently hold
Top Secret
clearance, and typically work with
sensitive compartmented information.”
Nolan’s spoke as if he were giving street directions to an advanced Alzheimer’s patient. “So don’t try to restrict my access.”

“Fine, I’ll see that you have TS/SCI code word clearance
for the MH370 project. However, if your girlfriend here sees anything above
Secret
, I’ll have you both fired for cause.” Melissa turned and walked out.

Millie looked at Nolan and broke into a laugh. “What a bitch! What did you ever do to her?” He could only purse his lips and shake his head. It was neither the time nor the place to share the story of a passionate eight-month affair. One that imploded when Nolan finally decided he couldn’t leave his wife for another woman after all. Melissa and he hadn’t spoken since that fateful day in October 2011 when he tearfully confessed to his new soulmate that he couldn’t go through with it. Melissa had been humiliated when Constantine’s predecessor transferred her to a smaller role in Japan to maintain the peace locally. Meanwhile, Nolan was consigned to a Hades of Joanie’s design.

“Hey, about tonight. Would you like to have a working dinner?”

Nolan was jarred back to the present and found his predicament unchanged. “We’ve got about twelve hours of nonstop work before we even start thinking about dinner. Let’s wait and see. I’ve got to run some non-MH370 errands this morning, and I need you to cover a lot of ground. Start with whatever the DEA and CIA are doing in Rangoon. I’m speaking with Hecker in twenty-five minutes, but you need to check in with everyone else in the meantime and tell me if anything big breaks. There’s a lot happening in Burma today, and they’ll need us to help interpret whatever they come up with. If you have any spare time, I want you to start researching rendition flights.”

“
Rendition flights
? What on earth are those?” she asked.

“You can find a lot in the public domain, but after 9/11 the CIA rented private jets and crews to move al Qaeda and other terrorist operatives between secret jails where Agency staffers coached allied interrogators. Non-US prisoners offshore have no Constitutional rights. As long as they weren’t in Gitmo, then they were eligible for torture—uh, make that
enhanced interrogation techniques
—provided US citizens didn’t hold the cattle prods.”

“What does that have to do with MH370?”

“It’s long odds, but if you come up with the names of the aviation groups that supplied planes and pilots to the Company for Asia, we might trace one of them to Airstrip One.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I woke up this morning thinking about a commercial jet that’s disappeared, something unprecedented. I’m betting MH370 is never again seen in one piece. The amount of forethought such an operation requires is so great that it’s inconceivable the hijackers didn’t have a plan to extract the high-value targets. The easiest way to do that would be to land a small jet either just before or after MH370 put down—probably after—then turn the plane around, load the HVTs and take off. This type of operation would require military pilots. With Teller involved, maybe the pilots were old-timers, too. If you can trace the small plane, the big plane may come to us.”

“You are amazing. Truly amazing.”

He realized then why he found her so attractive: Millie appreciated him. Being almost out of Joanie’s official doghouse was well and good, but he had long ago lost his hero status in his own household. He flashed Millie his biggest, most genuine smile. If she weren’t thirty years his junior . . . . Get a grip, Bob
. Get a grip
. “I’ll catch you later,” he said as he headed toward the China watchers.

“I hope you will.”

With only twenty minutes before he was due on the phone with Hecker, he took the internal staircase rather than wait for the elevator. Swiping in and out of the heavy doors, he mulled over a few plausible stories as he climbed a single flight.

“Hello, Robert,” said Ho Ee Ling. Pushing sixty and not much in the looks department, Ee Ling might have been the most beautiful person in Singapore station, Nolan thought. Certainly that morning she was.

“Ee Ling, my dear, how are you?”

“Her Royal Highness Melissa Shook came by yesterday to chew me out, saying
all
Singapore Agency research staff, including me, should be on
her
MH370 task force.
Her
task force? What a joke. As soon as that email went out, I went right to the chief and told him I wasn’t working on any project that prima donna oversaw. Dick agreed with me, but I’m still down my best research librarian. So what brings you up here other than neighborliness? Say, aren’t you retiring soon?”

Ee Ling didn’t receive many visitors, but was an ace at tracking the many sundry agents, stringers and clandestine payments the MSS had running through Singapore. She served as the chief portal through which in-house staff posed China-related inquiries.

Nolan had his opening. “Ah, I’m glad you mentioned Melissa, because she’s the reason I’m here. Somehow, Shook has it in her head that a high-ranking MSS officer was on that missing plane. She didn’t even give me a name.” The old hands knew that Melissa—despite being a superstar—was insecure and withheld information to maintain an edge. “I have an order to identify every MSS field office within thirty miles of a town called Kaiping, which is deep in Guangdong province. Apparently this bigwig is either based in, or is from, Kaiping. I need to give Shook enough clues so she can claim credit if she turns over a rock and finds a snake.” He’d overstated Melissa’s modus operandi, but Nolan was playing to Ee Ling’s well-known enmity toward her much younger, blonder and better-looking associate.