Foley nodded, mulling this over, but obviously not taking no can do for an answer. “Remember that time you and I sat up for five days straight watching that safe house?”
“Outside Addis Ababa,” Hendricks said and chuckled. “The Soviets were up to their armpits in that place. I can still smell the curtains in that shitty apartment.”
“I know,” Foley said. “Mango-scented curtains… What was that all about? About three days in, you told me a story about how you wanted to stage a protest against people in your hometown when you were in high school.”
“Right,” Hendricks said. “Even the local ministers were against the state putting in a group home because of the so-called black troublemakers it would bring into the county.”
“And your dad told you to stand up for what you believe in, but to be smart about it. He said—”
“He said that some causes were worth losing your life over, and some were like jumping off a cliff and screaming at the wind on the way down.” Hendricks sighed, giving a solemn nod. “It was good advice. Served me well in picking my battles. That’s why I’m quitting here to teach for a few years while I’m still young enough.”
“I really do need you to stay,” Foley said.
“Why?”
“Here’s the funny part,” Foley said. “I can’t tell you that just yet. But I can promise you this. You won’t be screaming against the wind. There’s a good chance that what I’m going to ask you to do will keep friends of ours alive.”
13
The rig bombing and chopper crash made everyone jumpy and reticent to speak openly in a foreign hotel room — not to mention all the talk of moles and counterintelligence operations. The CIA had few safe houses in Ho Chi Minh City, and even those were suspect. At this point, everything was suspect. The Hendley Associates Gulfstream made the perfect airborne secure compartmented information facility, or SCIF, in which Chavez and the rest of The Campus could discuss operational plans with Adam Yao. The Hendley pilots filed a flight plan to Hanoi and back, giving the group time to talk without having to worry about clearing customs anywhere until they hammered out the details of their mission — and direction of travel. Caruso came along, too. No way he was going on any op. He’d return to the States the following day, for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. Until then, he had a good mind for tactics. Chavez was glad to have him along, even if he was a little loopy on hydrocodone.
Chavez and Clark sat in aft-facing leather seats. Caruso sat in the very back on the sofa — Jack Junior’s usual spot. Adara sat beside him. Midas and Jack faced forward across from Chavez and Clark. Lisanne sat in one of the two vacant seats behind them.
“Now that we can speak in the black,” Chavez said, “are you folks hearing any chatter on the rig bombing?”
Adam Yao’s voice was crystal clear over the encrypted satellite link — which Mary Pat Foley assured everyone was secure, even from Langley and Fort Meade.
“I’m thinking it was a wrong place, wrong time type of thing. The Chinese make no bones about the fact that they lay claim to all waters inside their sacred little nine dashes.” Yao’s words dripped with derision. “Blowing up a state-owned oil rig isn’t exactly a great leap forward from ramming Vietnamese or Philippine Navy vessels and drowning a bunch of sailors. These guys have no trouble throwing their substantial weight around to show the world who’s boss in the South China Sea. Our Freedom of Navigation Patrols are pissing Beijing off something fierce. I know that much.”
Dom groaned from his vantage point on the sofa in back, gazing out of one open eye. “Effective way to gather intel if you don’t value human life,” he said. “Blow the hell out of a rig to put some folks in the water, then sit back and see how long it takes for the United States Navy to respond.”
“Or to see if they respond,” Clark said. “It allows the Chinese to see what our rules of engagement are toward civilians.”
“We’re all intel folks,” Adam Yao said, sounding very much like he was gritting his teeth. “And as such, we are responsible for submitting unbiased intelligence to Higher, so the analysts who often have the larger picture can do their jobs.”
“True…” Clark looked around the Gulfstream’s cabin to see if anyone else knew what Yao was getting at.
The CIA officer plowed ahead. “Honestly, guys, I’ve got to tell you, it’s getting awfully damned hard to be objective here. In order to do my job, I try to look at things through a Chinese lens. But that lens is getting pretty damned murky. I’m starting to think there aren’t any lines—” Yao took a deep breath. “Sorry to go off like that. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.”
“Yeah, speaking of that,” Chavez said, pencil stub poised over a small black notebook. “Still no line on this Medina Tohti woman?”
“Not yet,” Yao said. “I have some hooks in the water. There’s a guy I’m meeting with either tonight or tomorrow who may be able to point us in the right direction.”
Clark spoke next. “The last couple of attacks attributed to the Wuming have been in and around Urumqi. She’s hanging her hat with them now, so it stands to reason she’s somewhere around that area.”
“That’s a good guess,” Yao said. “But Urumqi is a city of three and a half million people. They have cameras like New York City has pigeons. I can guarantee you that right now, the place is crawling with People’s Liberation Army Navy intelligence.”
“Hang on.” Caruso opened one eye again at the back of the plane. “It’s PLA-Navy intelligence and not Ministry of State Security?”
“Oddly, yes,” Yao said. “From what I’m hearing, Navy spooks reporting directly to Admiral Zheng are handling this one by themselves. The admiral wants the search kept low-key, but he also wants this woman bad, so they’re leaving no stone unturned.”
“And no idea why they want her?” Adara asked.
“Something to do with the missing professor,” Yao said. “That’s it so far.”
“But too hot for us to go in without a better lock on Medina Tohti’s location,” Chavez said, nodding while he doodled in his notebook.
“It is for now,” Yao said. “With any luck, my guy will give us a concrete place to focus on.”
“Any chance Tohti will go to her daughter’s?” Ryan asked.
“There’s a chance,” Yao said. “The girl’s evidently some kind of gymnastics prodigy. The government had taken her to Beijing for training when Medina’s husband was rounded up and killed. Sounds like Medina just lost it and ran off.”
Adara gave a low whistle. “Makes sense when you think about it, wanting to join a group that’s killing the people who have taken away her husband and her daughter. The poor woman’s gotten the shitty end of the stick from her own government.”
“We do know the daughter is in Kashgar,” Yao said. “Staying with her aunt.”
“The authorities are sure to be up on that address as well,” Ryan said.
“Oh, yeah,” Yao said. “Urumqi is bad, but surveillance in Kashgar is probably worse. Citizens in western China are surveilled more heavily than virtually any other city in the world. Cameras everywhere, facial-recognition software running full-tilt, checkpoints with magnetometers and X-ray screening all over the place. The place is crawling with Bingtuan.”
“Bingtuan?” Chavez asked.
“The Corps. Short for Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps,” Yao said. “Sounds a hell of a lot more benign than it is. The XPCC is a paramilitary government organization charged with protecting the frontier from invasion, but their primary focus is on tamping down any rebellion from the Uyghur population. They have their hands in everything — the farm quotas, education, healthcare, law enforcement — making sure everyone is being Chinese enough.”