I called Kanezaki from a pay phone in Namba. I told him to meet me that night, that he could find details on the bulletin board. I uploaded the necessary information from an Internet café. The Nozomi bullet train would take him about two and a half hours, and I expected he would leave quickly after getting my message.
I checked the bulletin board I had set up for Delilah, and was mildly surprised to find a message from her: Call me. There was a phone number.
I used it. The call might be traced back to Osaka, but I wasn’t going to be in town long enough for it to matter.
“Allo,” I heard her say.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Hey. Thanks for calling.”
“Sure.”
“I wanted to tell you that it’s almost done. To ask you to be patient for just a little while longer.”
That was smart. She must have been concerned that, if I didn’t hear from her, I might get frustrated. That I might decide she was playing me and go after Belghazi unilaterally again. And better to hear my voice, and let me hear hers, rather than a dry text message left floating in cyberspace.
“How much longer?”
“A day. Maybe two. It’ll be worth it, you’ll see.”
I wondered for a moment, again, about the elevator at the Macau Mandarin Oriental. After what had happened subsequently, and after what I’d learned, my gut said that she hadn’t been part of that attempt on me, that in fact she had tried to warn me, as she had claimed. What I couldn’t understand was why. From her perspective, operationally, a warning would have been counterproductive.
I hated a loose end like that. But I couldn’t make sense of it. I’d chew it over another time.
“Okay,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“Can I reach you at this number?”
“No. Not after this.”
I paused, then said, “All right, then. Good luck.”
“And you.” She clicked off.
A LITTLE UNDER four hours later Kanezaki and I were sitting in Ashoka, a chain Indian restaurant in the Umeda underground mall that I had come to like during my time in Osaka. I had employed the usual security procedures beforehand and there had been no problems.
“You were right,” I told him over Tandoor Murgh and Keema Naan and Panjabi Lassis. “There was a leak on your side. Crawley.”
“How do you know?”
The question was straightforward and I detected no sign of suspicion behind it. Apparently he hadn’t yet learned of Crawley’s recent demise. When he did, he would come to his own conclusions. I saw no advantage in having him hear it from me.
“Your NE Division has a relationship with Belghazi,” I said. “Belghazi gives them information about other people’s deals, particularly in the WMD trade, and in return they protect him in a variety of ways, including overseeing transshipments through Hong Kong.”
“Holy shit, how the hell did you learn this?”
I shrugged. “You’re telling me you didn’t know?”
“I’ve discovered a few things since we last spoke,” he said, looking at me. “But I’ve got insider access, and you don’t. Which is why I’m asking.”
I smiled. “Forget about how. Call it ‘sources and methods.’ What matters is what-and who.”
“Who-”
“There’s a CIA NOC, based in Hong Kong, attached to the CTC, formerly with NE Division. He’s the connection between Belghazi and Crawley.”
I watched him closely, looking for a reaction. I didn’t see anything.
“You know about the NOC?” I asked.
He nodded. “Of course.”
“All right. My guess is, he’s part of the reason that Belghazi seems to enjoy Macau so much. Belghazi likes to handle transfers in Hong Kong, where the CIA can help with the heavy lifting. Macau is right next door.”
“You’re saying it’s not the gambling?”
I shrugged. “I’m sure he loves gambling. But he also knows that analysts focus on things like gambling when they’re creating profiles. He knows that, if his movements are tracked to Macau, his profilers will just say, ‘Ah, it’s the gambling,’ without probing deeper. He’s using your expectations about his known habits to obscure whatever his real purpose is. Feeding you exactly what he wants you to eat, knowing you’ve already got a taste for it.”
We were silent for a long moment, during which Kanezaki drummed his fingers on the table and ignored his food. Then he said, “You’re right.”
“I know.”
He shook his head. “What I mean is, last time we met, when you suggested that Macau might not be a side trip for Belghazi, but maybe the main point, it got me thinking. I did some checking. Now, I told you that we’ve got a fix on Belghazi’s sat phone. The units he uses are part of a low-earth-orbit network. People like the LEO networks because reception is clear and because the satellites’ proximity to earth means reduced signal latency, but the networks are less secure.”
“Because multiple satellites are picking up the signal?”
“Exactly. So you can always triangulate. It’s not supposed to be possible because the signals are digitized and encrypted-it’s like, okay, you know there’s a needle in the haystack, but that’s a far cry from actually being able to find the needle. But, trust me, if you use one of those phones, we can find you.”
I thought for a moment. “You said ‘units.’ Has Belghazi switched phones recently?”
“Yeah, he has.”
“I thought he might. He must have decided that the satellite phone was how he got tracked to Macau. What would the NOC have told him?”
“Probably to get a new phone.”
“But you’re able to track him anyway?”
He smiled. “Yeah.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid that would come under the heading of ‘sources and methods.’ ”
“What, have you got the NSA listening in for a digital voice imprint?”
He shook his head again. All right, I wasn’t going to get the specifics. “Still think I’m paranoid for not using a cell phone?” I asked.
He smiled. “Maybe not. Anyway, I plotted out the coordinates of every Asian location to which we’ve tracked Belghazi’s phone calls during the last two years. What you get looks like a semirandom collection of dots. Except for one place.”
“Yes?”
“Three times in the last year, Belghazi has shown up at Kwai Chung in Hong Kong.”
“The container port?”
“Yeah. Always at Container Terminal Nine, the new one on Tsing Li island. He makes a call from inside. Always between two and four in the morning.”
“How’s he getting in there?” I asking, thinking out loud. “It’s got to be a secure facility.”
“I wondered the same thing. I thought, maybe he’s got an accomplice in there, a bribed Customs guy, night watchman, something like that. That’s why always the same terminal. I did a little research. And I found out something interesting.”
“Yes?”
“There’s an access agent. Hong Kong Chinese, lives in the New Territories, works at Kwai Chung. Transferred to Terminal Nine when it came online in July 2003. Belghazi’s first visit there was in August of the same year.”
“Who was the recruiting officer?”
He looked at me. “The NOC.”
I thought for a moment. I didn’t see Dox in that role. He was a shooter, not a recruiter. But I couldn’t be sure.
“So the NOC has the relationship with the port employee,” I said. “He tells Belghazi, ‘Hey, you can ship through Hong Kong, I’ve got the local connections to make sure it all goes smoothly.’ A little service from your friendly neighborhood CIA officer in exchange for information on WMD precursors or whatever.”