She was pleased that she hadn’t accidentally shot him in the process. That would have been embarrassing. But there were multiple ways to proceed here. And it was her decision whether he lived or not. She closed the door behind her, flipping the latch to hold it in place.
“Hello, my dear. Have a seat.” She flicked her weapon towards one of the chairs by the window. He did as he was commanded. Lena pulled back her hoodie. She had to be quick. Her internal clock ticked away.
“So, how has your progress been?”
He looked like he was trying to be brave, but his lower lip was quivering, eyes glancing at the gun.
“Things have been going according to plan.”
“You gave the Americans false data on the ship locations? As you were instructed?”
“Yes.” He kept looking at the gun.
“It’s alright, Natesh, I’m not here to kill you.”
He looked puzzled at that. “Then why the gun?”
“To ensure compliance. If I have to use it, I will. But I trust that we can come to a better arrangement.”
His breathing was fast and heavy. “What do you want?”
“What did you give them?”
His eyes darted over to his laptop on the desk. She followed his glance. “You said you wanted me to pass them false information on ship movements. So I did.”
“Show me. And no tricks. Otherwise — well, you know very well what will happen. And, Natesh?”
“What?”
“It doesn’t have to be quick. I’m an excellent shot. I could just take out one of your legs and cripple you, then drag you outside to where my friends are waiting. They’ll bring you into a dark room and go to work on you for weeks. Keeping you alive just to make sure that you feel pain.” She smiled as she said it.
He stood, looking woozy. “Okay. Okay. I might have given them some data that was beyond what we had discussed. I’m sorry.” He held up his hands. “Just tell me how to make this right.”
She tilted her head. “There. There. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? A bit of honesty can go a long way. Now, just show me what you’ve already provided them.”
“It’s been erased.”
“Fine, then you’ll write it down from memory. I have people that will need that.”
Natesh was sitting behind his laptop computer now, typing. “Okay.”
Natesh had been hedging his bets. Lena had instructed him to come to Japan. She had arranged for the Americans to find out about him, hoping that they would recruit him. It would be a way to provide the Americans with false information. Things had worked well enough at first. But then Natesh had tried to get cute.
The American offer had sounded pretty good, it seemed. So he had been giving them access and information beyond what he was supposed to provide, without reporting it to the Chinese. Natesh had left a special CIA-made device, designed to look like a wristwatch, in a mail drop across the street. He had also copied a file onto his personal laptop. His intention, now that the attack had begun, was to take as much as he could and provide it to the Americans in exchange for his freedom.
He told all this to Lena and began showing her how to gain access to his computer, and which software program to use. She made him write everything down. It took five minutes.
“Were you going to tell the Americans that I sent you here? That you were still betraying them, even now?”
Natesh looked frightened. He didn’t answer her question. He just looked up at her and shrugged. “So what now?”
She smiled. “Now you come with me, and we live happily ever after.”
“Why did you have me show you all that? Write everything down?”
“In case I need to kill you.” Her eyes were emotionless.
He started to tear up.
She sighed. “Look, Natesh, we’ve accomplished what we came for. Now they’re listening to you. They believe you. They’ll make decisions based on information that you give them. Natesh, you are what we called a verified asset. Do you know how hard it is to create one of those? You are a gold mine to them. And now, we will take over the messaging. We’ll begin providing them information that is in our best interests.”
“But — I already gave them information. I told them about the attacks coming from North Korea. I told them about the locations of the merchants and the Chinese carrier group. They’ve already—”
“Natesh, timing is everything. You told them about the attacks coming from North Korea just before they occurred. So the Americans couldn’t do anything to stop them. The only purpose that served was to verify that you were providing accurate information.”
“But the attacks on Guam and Hawaii…”
“Yes, well — in all truth, we did not expect you to realize the actual positions of those units. We thought you would provide them the intended navigational tracks to the south, as you were instructed, drawing their forces to the Marianas or even to South America. Turns out you are better than our hackers thought — or maybe you got lucky. But the fact that the Americans were able to gain a victory at Hawaii based on your information only serves to solidify their faith in you as a source.
“We will need to be very careful not to compromise that trust. And you will continue to provide them with a lot of useful information. Just not… too useful. And when the time is right, when we want them to bet all their chips on one big hand, you will feed them something erroneous. Something that will work spectacularly in our favor. You can’t buy that kind of mole, Natesh. You have to grow it.”
“So, you planned this all along? You planned for me to betray you?”
“No. Not until you showed signs of — how shall I put it — sensitivity. When you began expressing doubts. When you began showing signs of weakness. That’s when I spoke to Jinshan and thought that this might be a good way to go. We were ready to go either way. I suspected that the American offer might be too tempting. So we kept a close eye on what you were doing. In case you decided to get creative.”
He frowned. “You’ve been watching me this whole time.”
She checked her watch and gestured to the door. “We monitor our people. It’s the only way to operate. Constant verification of loyalty. Now come on. We need to leave.”
“Is that Natesh?” Tetsuo asked.
“Yeah.”
Chase saw the glass elevator traveling down towards them. As the passengers came into view, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Who’s next to him?”
There was a hooded figure, back to the elevator’s glass window. Then the figure turned. And Chase saw the eyes of the last person he expected to be here.
“That’s Lena Chou.”
She was staring straight at him.
Lena froze. Her senses were already heightened; she knew that the CIA could have someone here. But as her eyes met those of Chase Manning, her pulse quickened.
She removed her hood, letting her long black hair flow down over her shoulders. Lena gripped her pistol, grappling with a mix of emotions inside of her. The elevator was fast approaching the bottom floor.
Lena slapped the second-floor button on the elevator, and their descent slowed to a halt. The door rang as it opened.
Chase and Tetsuo saw the elevator lights stop at the second floor. They were crouched on opposite sides of the lobby-level elevator area, half-hidden with their weapons aimed at the closed elevator doors.
Chase signaled to Tetsuo, pointing towards the stairs.
“We need to go up.”
He nodded and rose, but then paused when the elevator rang and the round floor indicator illuminated to indicate that it was moving again. The first-floor light went bright yellow, then dark. Then the lobby level went bright yellow.