“Is that near a town or village?” Brett asked.
“Not that we know of,” the Oracle said. “You’re talking the heart of the rainforest.”
“I’m no expert on audio transmissions,” Zane said, “but I just find it hard to believe they can’t identify either sound.”
“We have to rely on what they’ve told us, Watson,” the Oracle said. “They’re the—”
Hathaway cut him off. “There is one thing I neglected to tell you. I got a call from Dr. Clark this morning, and he was able to pass along something that has, quite frankly, deepened the mystery.” He looked at Zane. “Alexander told you that the signature of the sounds was unique. Actually, that’s not entirely true. The DRA team was finally able to make a partial match, a slight overlap with a sound they cataloged several years ago.”
The Oracle’s brow furrowed. “From where?”
Hathaway nodded at Brett. “I sent Mr. Foster an additional slide late this afternoon.”
As Zane watched, the image of a galaxy appeared. He recognized it immediately.
“The sound they found in their database originated in our closest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. It was hard to pinpoint the precise location, but they believe it came from an area of dark matter.”
“Good grief,” the Oracle muttered.
“Yes, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but as I said, I just received the information this morning.”
Zane leaned back in his seat. “So what does this mean?”
Hathaway looked at the Oracle, who got up and took the laser pointer back from him. Brett advanced to the next slide. The image that appeared wasn’t what Zane expected. It appeared to be an official photo of an Asian woman, much like one on a driver’s license or company identification. Zane studied her face. He guessed she was in her early or mid-thirties. She was more pleasant-looking than attractive.
“This is Wu Mei-ling,” the Oracle began. “She is the daughter of a low-level Chinese diplomat, at least that’s the official version.”
“In other words, she’s a spook,” Zane said, his eyes still fixed on the picture.
“Yes, she is,” the Oracle said. “And apparently a good one.” Brett advanced to the next slide. Another photograph appeared, this one depicting a man in his forties with brown hair. “This is David Parsons, the agency’s senior field officer in Taipei, where Ms. Wu was operating. He had established contact with her and was in the process of recruiting her when disaster struck.
“Apparently Chinese intelligence knew that Parsons worked for the CIA. He was under deep cover, and we still don’t know how they were able to determine who he was. Unfortunately, that gave them a leg up.”
“This doesn’t sound like it’s going to end well,” Zane said.
“It doesn’t. She managed to drug Parsons in his condominium then accessed virtually all of the electronic information stored on his agency-issued tablet.”
“So what happened to Parsons? Is he dead?”
Zane could see Hathaway squirming in his seat, clearly uncomfortable that the agency was being placed in a bad light. No wonder he’d let the Oracle take over.
“No. Wu drugged him while they were on the couch, and after he passed out, she planted a Trojan in the tablet. The malware then copied all of the information contained in Parsons’s files and transmitted it to a server used by the Chinese military. Anyway, after planting the Trojan, she stuck around until Parsons woke up. They’d been drinking heavily at a restaurant earlier that evening, so he figured he’d simply succumbed to the alcohol.”
Zane shook his head. “In other words, he never realized he’d been compromised.”
“Exactly.”
“Then how did we find out?”
Hathaway cleared his throat and said, “We discovered it using sophisticated antivirus software developed by the NSA. It didn’t pick up the Trojan when it was loaded but was able to place it in quarantine after a full scan was run the following evening. Unfortunately, by then the damage was done.”
“And Wu?” Zane asked.
“She disappeared off the face of the earth,” the Oracle said. “We were going to play dumb, leave the Trojan in place, and feed the Chinese bad information through Parsons’s tablet, but apparently they were able to get everything they wanted and pulled out.”
Zane remained silent for moment. Finally, he looked up and said, “This is all quite interesting, but what does it have to do with an audio transmission from the Amazonian rainforest?”
“I’m glad you asked, Watson,” the Oracle said. He turned and motioned for Brett to bring up the next slide. It was a picture of Garet Slater, CIA field agent and owner of the Idaho lodge Zane had just visited.
Zane leaned back and rubbed the stubble on his face. “Okay, now I’m even more lost than before.”
The Oracle stared at the operative for a moment. It was as though he was waiting for him to put it all together.
Suddenly a few fragments of understanding pierced his thoughts. “So, the information grab in Taipei is what brought the Chinese to the lodge?” Zane asked.
The Oracle nodded slowly. “Correct. Slater had just sent Parsons a correspondence, one that Parsons hadn’t even read yet. In that email, Slater said that he would be at the lodge the following week, and he asked Parsons to join him to discuss a new operation.”
Zane frowned. “So they were coming after Parsons? They had their information. Why kill him?”
“They weren’t after Parsons,” Hathaway said. “They were after Slater.” He began to pace. “Garet made a big information grab in Taiwan a few years ago, one that did considerable harm to the Chinese military. They have a long memory and saw this as an opportunity to exercise some payback, so they triggered a sleeper cell operating out of Los Angeles.”
Zane nodded. “Okay, that makes perfect sense. I’m with you. But I repeat, what on earth does a Chinese hit team operating on American soil have to do with a sound transmitted from the depths of the Brazilian rainforest?”
“A lot,” said the Oracle.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next slide displayed an email. The print was difficult to decipher, so Brett zoomed in on the image. The Oracle took a long sip of water, giving Zane a chance to read it.
The email was from Garet Slater to David Parsons. Its content seemed innocuous, giving the details of a family vacation. In fact, it was so innocuous that Zane guessed it was likely sprinkled with coded language employed by the agency.
The Oracle used the laser pointer to highlight the sender, receiver, and subject line at the top. “As you can see, this is an e-mail that Garet sent to David. Brett, please move to the next slide.” The next image was a typed Word document. “Even though they were using a secure channel, the language was coded because it included details of an upcoming operation. It’s a double layer of protection that was meant to prevent the kind of breach that took place in Taipei.”
The Oracle hovered the laser dot over the first translated sentence, and Zane’s eyes widened. “What Garet was actually doing was letting David know that he was being called off of his work in Taipei in order to lead an operation in Brazil.”
“We had to get him out of Taipei anyway, so we figured why not send him to the other side of the world,” Hathaway added.
Zane leaned forward. “So, let me guess… they were both going to hunt down the source of the signal.”
“Precisely,” replied the Oracle. “Parsons served as our station chief in Brazil for seven years. He knows the country like no one else in the agency and has contacts throughout the region, even in the north.
“The operation was to be spearheaded by the agency, with assistance from a Special Operations task force.” Brett brought up the next slide. It showed the bodies of the five Chinese agents killed in Idaho. Zane had been there when the photos were taken. Three sustained gunshot wounds. The other two showed no outward sign of injury. Zane had watched one of them take a cyanide pill and discovered later that the sniper at the barn had managed to free a hand and do the same thing. “Which brings us to the Idaho hit team. As you already know from our final report, we were unable to identify any of the bodies.”