The man who contacted him was Chinese, that much was clear from his voice over the phone, and that, along with the short and cryptic conversation, was enough reason for him to worry.
This man would be a spy, he would want Todd to commit some act of treason that could get him killed or thrown in prison for the rest of his life, and, Todd knew already… that whatever it was, he would fucking do it.
When Todd got home from Shanghai after the episode with the hooker and the Chinese detective, he considered telling the inevitable agent who contacted him to go fuck himself when he came calling about his bullshit spy mission. But no, he could not do that. They had the videotape and the audiotape and he only had to think back to that fifty-two-inch TV in the Shanghai suite and his lily-white sweaty ass bouncing up and down to know that the Chinese had him by the fucking balls.
If he balked when the Chinese came calling, then there was no doubt that within a few days, his wife, Sherry, would open an e-mail containing an HD video of the entire event.
No fucking way. That’s not happening. He’d told himself this at the time, and since then he’d waited on the call and dreaded whatever would come after the call.
At five minutes past the hour an Asian man carrying a shopping bag walked into the pizza joint, bought a calzone and a can of Pepsi from the one man behind the counter, and then brought his late lunch toward the small seating area in the back.
As soon as Todd realized the man was Asian, he tracked his every move, but when he neared Todd’s table the computer hardware salesman looked away, down at his greasy cheese pizza, assuming eye contact would be a definite no-no in a situation such as this.
“Good afternoon.” The man sat down at Todd’s little bistro table, violating the protocol Wicks had just established.
Todd looked up and shook the hand offered by the Chinese man.
Wicks was surprised by the look of this spy. He certainly did not seem ominous. He was in his twenties, younger than Todd would have predicted, and he seemed almost nerdish in appearance. Thick glasses, a white button-down shirt, and slightly wrinkled black Sansabelt slacks.
“How is the pizza?” the man asked with a smile.
“It’s okay. Look, shouldn’t we go somewhere private?”
The young man in the thick glasses just shook his head with a little smile. He bit into his calzone and winced at the hot cheese. He gulped Pepsi and then said, “No, no. This is fine.”
Todd rubbed his fingers through his hair. “This shop has security cameras. Just about every restaurant does. What if someone goes back and—”
“The camera is not working at the moment,” the Chinese spy said with a smile. He started to take another bite of his lunch, but then he stopped. “Todd, I am beginning to wonder if you are looking for a bad excuse to avoid helping us.”
“No. It’s okay. I’m just… worried.”
The younger man took another bite, then another sip from his can. He shook his head and waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. We would like to ask a favor of you. It is very easy. One favor, and that’s it.”
Todd had spent the past month thinking about little else other than this “favor.”
“What is it?”
With his continued nonchalance, the Chinese spy said, “You are planning on making a delivery to one of your customers in the morning.”
Fuck, thought Wicks. He was due at Bolling Air Force Base at eight a.m. to drop off a pair of motherboards at DIA. Panic shot through his heart. He would be spying for the Chinese. He would be caught. He would lose everything.
But he had no alternative.
Todd lowered his head halfway to the table. He wanted to cry.
The Chinese man said, “Hendley Associates. In Maryland.”
Todd’s head came back up quickly.
“Hendley?”
“You do have an appointment with them?”
Wicks did not even wonder how it was the Chinese knew about his dealings with this particular customer. He was elated that he was being asked to do something involving corporate espionage as opposed to something involving the U.S. government. “Right. Eleven a.m. Dropping off a new high-speed drive from a German manufacturer.”
The young Chinese man who had not given his name slid the shopping bag under the table.
“What is that?” Todd asked.
“It is your product. The drive. It is exactly the same product you would deliver. We want you to make that delivery but substitute this drive. Do not worry, it is identical.”
Wicks shook his head. “Their IT director is kind of a security freak. He is going to run all sorts of diagnostics on your drive.” Todd paused, unsure if he should say out loud what was obvious. After a moment he blurted out, “He is going to find whatever you put on there.”
“I did not say we put anything on there.”
“No. You did not. But I’m sure you did. I mean… why else would we be doing this?”
“There is nothing on there that any IT director can find.”
“You don’t know this guy, or his company. They are top-notch.”
The Chinese man smiled as he bit into his calzone. “I know Gavin Biery, and I know Hendley Associates.”
Wicks just looked at him for a long moment. Behind them, a group of high school kids entered, talking loudly to one another; a boy put another in a headlock as they stepped up to the counter to order, and the rest of the group laughed.
And Todd Wicks sat in the middle of this normalcy, knowing that his life was not normal at all.
An idea popped into his head. “Let me take the unit and run my own diagnostics on it. If I can’t find anything on it, then I’ll deliver it to Gavin.”
The Chinese man smiled yet again. He was all smiles. “Todd. We are not entering into a negotiation. You will do as you are told, and you will do it when you are told to do it. The product is clean. There is nothing for you to worry about.”
Todd took a bite of his pizza, but he let the food sit in his mouth. He wondered when he would feel like eating again. He realized that he had to trust the Chinese.
“I do this and I am done?”
“You do this and you are done.”
“Okay,” he said, and then he reached down and brought the shopping bag closer to him.
“Excellent. Now just relax. You have nothing to worry about at all. This is just business. We do this sort of thing all the time.”
Todd picked up the bag and stood up. “Just this once.”
“I promise.”
Wicks left the restaurant without another word.
THIRTY
Adam Yao had been working all day at his “white side” job as president, director, and sole employee of SinoShield, his one-man intellectual property rights investigation firm. As much as duty called with the CIA, it was also his job to maintain the front company that kept him over here in Hong Kong, kept him in touch with members of the local police and government, and gave him a ready cover for his CIA surveillance activities.
But it was nine p.m. now and, with the twelve-hour difference between Langley and Hong Kong, Adam decided to check in on the “black side” of his duties via his secure e-mail link.
He had not wanted to send the message yesterday afternoon; he knew somewhere in the Asia sector of CIA’s National Clandestine Service there existed a leak.
But he had to send the message.
Yesterday the entire U.S. drone fleet, military, intelligence, Homeland Security, the entire enchilada, had been shut down full stop, because someone had hacked into the network or the satellite signals or both, which was the prevailing opinion in the NSA’s prelim tech reports about the incident Adam had read.