Lena replied to his question. “Yes. David Manning likely saw something.”
“What did he see?”
“The second night. When Bill Stanley was extracted. You know Bill now. I believe you accompanied him back here this morning, correct?”
Tom said, “Yes.”
Lena said, “Well, David may have seen that extraction process. And if he did, that has likely compromised our position on my side of the island.”
“How do you not know whether he saw it or not? I saw those camera feeds in your control center just now. Can’t you see everything that is going on over there?”
Lena sighed. This man was beneath her. “We have video feed for the classroom only. We are constrained by time, I am afraid. The opportunity to host the consultants here on the island did not come with much prior warning. We prioritized the classroom. It is, unfortunately the sole area under surveillance. I monitor the status of our consultants, and I check in every few hours with the control center. The control center supervisor has standing orders if I don’t call in.”
Tom looked amused. “Really? That gets a little dicey for you now, doesn’t it? Think you can handle that all by yourself?”
“Yes, actually. But I’m not by myself. I have an assistant with me.”
Tom raised his eyebrows and said, “Just one?”
“Just one.”
“Who is it? Anyone from the list I saw?”
Lena didn’t answer. She turned and walked out of the room. A young Chinese soldier with a clipboard followed her. She dictated orders to him as she walked and he wrote down everything she said. Tom hustled to keep up.
They walked down a hallway with metal grate floors, then went up several sets of stairs. Tom was huffing and puffing by the time they got to the fifth floor. Lena walked with the endurance of a marathoner. They left the stairway and entered another long, narrow hallway. One side of the passage was the same dark grey concrete that all of the structures on the island were made from. The other wall had long plexiglass windows that looked into an enormous cavern. Lena stopped and stared out the window. A dozen men in hard hats were working inside. One had on a welding mask and sparks sprayed from the torch he held.
It was a spectacular work of construction. One of their newest submarine pens. The dark blue water on the ground level was empty of submarines at the moment. Two nuclear fast-attack submarines would fit, however, when they arrived. The opening of the cave was four hundred yards down and emptied into the ocean near the pier. Lena had been told that several dozen of these covert bases had been constructed in the past three years. It gave her a sense of pride to see the quality and precision with which the Chinese military worked.
Lena looked at the production site and said, “Tell me, Thomas, why did you betray your country?”
His face flushed. He said, “It’s Tom. And screw you.”
“Oh, please… take no offense. I simply wanted to understand how the transformation occurred.”
Tom shifted his weight and looked at her suspiciously. He said, “Fine. You wanna know? It’s because America isn’t what it used to be. I was in the CIA for eighteen years. I worked my ass off. I spent more time in shithole countries around the world than I care to remember… swatting at mosquitoes and listening to bad guys talk on cell phones. The pay was shitty. The job was shittier. After Iraq, the private sector got hot. And they paid real nice. So I jumped ship.”
Lena could see his eyes darting around as he replayed his life. What was sad was that he probably hadn’t given much serious thought to it. He lacked depth. He wasn’t a thinker. He was a pawn. That was fine. The world needed pawns. But she despised this one.
Lena said, “And?”
He looked at her. “And… the private sector played by a different set of rules. They weren’t driven by patriotism but by dollars. Everything started to become clearer for me. The game you and I play, Lena… it’s the same no matter what side you play it for. Once I went to the private sector, I got access to a lot of information. Sometimes our company sold it to the Americans… sometimes to other countries. And the thing about the private sector is… you can move around a lot. Competitors will pay you more money to come work for them and spill your guts. So this loyalty thing really started to get overrated for me. I bounced around a few times… worked for all of the major players. I started doing work in Beijing for a small shop there. When you guys approached me… I saw it as just another opportunity to join a competitor. An opportunity. That’s all life is. A collection of choices and tradeoffs. There is no loyalty. No country or company is going to look out for you. They only care about themselves. Patriots are idiots. They can keep their flags and medals. I’ll be rich and on the winning team.”
Lena listened without betraying her emotion. This man was truly a pig. Mr. Jinshan had coaxed him into this role. Tom had helped them, that much was true. Much of his information had assisted their project greatly. They wouldn’t have been able to get many of the consultants if not for him. But she despised what he stood for. Meeting Americans like Tom made her believe in this cause. Lena knew that religion and those who loved it would serve as a scapegoat and motivator for many of the common folk. But to her this war had nothing to do with religion. It had everything to do with strength and weakness. This man was weak. Weak in the mind and weak in his convictions. He gave in to his desires. Probably went whoring any chance he got. He sacrificed nothing and believed in nothing of true value. That was how he’d gotten so fat. America had gotten fat. Europe had gotten fat. While much of the world starved. Lena would help to trim the fat and reset the balance.
She motioned for him to approach her. He leaned forward.
She bent in close to his ear and whispered, “I want you to know how thankful we are here for your service. But please… in case you have any doubt, know that my personal belief is that you are nothing more than a highly paid prostitute.”
She backed away and stared straight into his eyes.
His mouth dropped open. His face grew red. “I… I have helped you. And your country. How dare you…” He fumed, but didn’t add anything else.
She stood facing him, not backing down. After a moment, she turned and walked away, leaving him standing there, questioning everything.
She called back to him as she walked, “Come on, Thomas, let’s go chat with our friend Bill…”
Bill’s cell was eight feet by eight feet, and the ceiling was fifteen feet high. It was almost pitch black. A small crack under the door where the hallway light peeked in was the only illumination he had. They played some type of white noise at all times. It was beginning to drive him mad. He didn’t know how, but they must know when he was trying to sleep. That was when they turned up the volume. It was like a cross between the old sound of static from a wrong analog TV channel and a bee buzzing in his ear.
A jingle of keys. Then the door opened and the light from outside temporarily blinded him.
Lena and the American that had escorted Bill from the Chinese ship both stood at the door’s entrance.
Bill cowered when he saw them.
Lena gave him a bright smile. “Hello, Bill.”
He didn’t answer. Bill ran his hand over the stubble of his unshaven face. He was a mess. He looked back at Lena through tired, watery eyes. He stomach ached with hunger, and he was so exhausted. He wanted nothing more than sleep and a hot meal.