“No.”
“They’re secret Chinese factories dedicated to cloning and improving on Western military technology. The Guoanbu steals schematics, diagrams, material samples — whatever it can get its hands on — then feeds them to doppelgänger factories for production.”
“Sounds like an urban legend.”
“Lambert didn’t think so. He thought they were real, and the Guoanbu was getting help from the inside: politicians, the Pentagon, CIA, NSA… No one’s willing to admit it, but when it comes to industrial espionage, the Guoanbu has no peer. You don’t get that lucky without help.”
“So, Kovac—”
“That, we don’t know yet. Here’s the important part: Yannick Ernsdorff is playing banker for a black-market weapons auction starring the world’s worst terrorist groups. Grim and I call it the 738 Arsenal — named after the doppelgänger factory it was stolen from.”
“And you know this how?”
“I found the crew that did the job — a bunch of bored former SAS boys led by Charles ‘Chucky Zee’ Zahm.”
“The writer?”
“You can add professional thief to his resume,” Fisher said, then explained about Zahm and his Little Red Robbers. “Zahm had proof of the job, including a complete inventory of the arsenal.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“I’ll show you the list later, but suffice it to say we can’t let the 738 Arsenal get away from us. Ben, you might have even seen pieces from the arsenal.”
“Come again?”
“The doppelgänger factory that Zahm hit was in eastern China, near the Russian border. In Jilin-Heilongjiang, about a hundred miles northwest of Vladivostok and about sixty miles from a Russian town called Korfovka.”
At the mention of Korfovka, Hansen’s eyes narrowed. “I was there. A while ago.”
“That’s where Zahm claims he delivered the arsenal.”
“When was this?”
“About five months ago.”
“I was there before that. The mission went… bad.”
“That happens,” Fisher said carefully. “It seems you got out okay.”
Hansen was nodding vaguely. He stopped and studied Fisher’s face. “I got out because somebody helped me. Stepped in at just the right moment.”
“Lucky break.”
“Yeah… lucky.” Hansen shook himself from his reverie. “This is a tall tale, Sam. Doppelgänger factories, Chinese replica weapons, this auction, Kovac…”
“Truth is stranger than fiction.”
“This cat-and-mouse game we’ve been playing has been for Kovac’s benefit.”
Fisher noted that this was a statement, not a question. Hansen and his team had already realized their strings were being pulled, but not why.
“Correct,” Fisher said. “He forced her to put a team in the field. If she refused, she’d be out, and all the work we’d done since Lambert’s death would be gone. I had to make it look good — keep you guys close, but not so close I couldn’t work. Without some minor victories and near misses, Kovac could have called Grimsdóttir’s plan a failure, and she’d be out.”
“This explains why she’s been jerking us around. She’s been juggling a lot of balls,” Hansen said. “Back to Kovac. If he’s not just an asshole but an asshole and a traitor, and he’s working for Ernsdorff ’s boss, then…”
“We couldn’t afford to have him know I was on to Ernsdorff or the auction.”
“But Kovac knew you were there. Wouldn’t he have already pushed the panic button?”
“Probably. And the first thing Ernsdorff and his boss would have done is check security. I didn’t leave any fingerprints when I hacked Ernsdorff ’s server; none of the auction attendees have disappeared… As far as they can tell, all is well. We suspect the auction is days away; they’re at the point of no return.”
“Yeah, you don’t invite the world’s worst tangos to one location, then tell them at the last minute to turn around and go home.”
“No, not with these kinds of stakes. And this is where you come in, Ben.”
“You mean we get to stop playing straight man in your comedy road show?”
“Exactly. Yesterday I tagged one of the auction attendees. A Chechen named Aariz Qaderi.”
“CMR, right?” Hansen asked. “Chechen Martyrs Regiment?”
“That’s the guy. I tagged him. He’s headed east into Russia — on his way to the auction, we hope.”
“Hold on. All the attendees will be scrubbed before they reach the auction site. Any kind of beacon or tracker will be found.”
“Not the kind we used.” Hansen opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but Fisher cut him off. “Another time. Trust me: You can scrub all you want and these trackers won’t come off.”
Hansen shrugged. “What’s our plan?”
“You get your team in here and brief them. Once they’re on board, we start moving east and wait for our trackers to phone home.”
“What about Ames?”
“We’ll deal with him later. For now he’s part of the team. We include him in everything.”
“What about his cell phone? And his OPSAT? He’ll try to contact Kovac.”
“Let him. Grimsdóttir’s made modifications to his phone and OPSAT. Every communication he makes beyond our tactical channels will go straight to her. She’ll be playing Kovac and anyone else Ames has been talking to. He’ll get voice mail, but Grim will respond to texts. Your phones aren’t Internet-capable, right?”
“Right.” Hansen smiled. “I like it. I like the plan.”
“I thought you might. One thing, though: One of us has to stick to Ames like glue. If he slips away and gets a message out another way, we’re done.”
“Understood.”
“How do you want to handle your people? I’d prefer to not get shot in the confusion.”
Hansen chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Fisher sat along the office’s back wall, the lights off. Ivanov, with a second dart in his thigh for good measure, lay on the floor before him. Hansen dialed his cell phone and recalled the team. Once they were inside he told them Grimsdóttir had come clean, then gave them the Reader’s Digest version of the story Fisher had laid out a few minutes earlier, save any mention of Fisher, his mission, Ernsdorff, Zahm, Qaderi, or how they were tracking him. These last two items Fisher had decided to hold in reserve.
Hansen fielded twenty minutes of questions and gripes before, finally, the team cooled off and seemed to accept its new mission. “One last thing,” Hansen said. “We’re taking on a new member. He’s going to be our team leader from this point on.”
The griping started again.
“Who the hell…?”
“Why would Grimsdóttir make a change at this point…?”
Fisher took his cue and walked out of the office. Gillespie saw him first, did a double take, then reached for her gun. Hansen called, “Stand down, Kim. Everybody — hands at your sides.”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Ames said with his greasy smile. “Look who it is.”
Noboru said, “Ben, what’s going on?”
“I think I’ll let Mr. Fisher explain that.”
31
Fisher’s overt reentry into the Third Echelon/ Splinter Cell community took place not at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, amid back slapping and handshakes, but in a warehouse in Odessa amid the suspicious stares from a group of twentysomethings who, up until thirty minutes before, had been bent on taking Fisher dead or alive. And judging from the glares aimed in his direction, it appeared most of Hansen’s people had been leaning toward the former choice. Predictably, once Fisher finished talking, Ames was the first to express his misgivings: