Chavez said, “I’ll be right out, Adam. Ryan, why don’t you come on back in and take the eye up on the mezzanine? Keep a soft surveillance. Just make sure nobody joins the entourage without getting a look at them.”
“Got it,” said Jack.
It took a few minutes to get Jack into position and Chavez back out the front, up the block, and back around into the small street behind the nightclub and high-rise apartment buildings, but finally Ding climbed into the passenger door of the Mitsubishi.
He just looked at Adam and said, “You wanted to talk?”
Yao said, “I know you are ex-Agency, and I checked you out. You retain your TS security clearance.”
Chavez smiled. The sooner they got this charade over with, the better.
“You’ve done your homework.”
Yao was not smiling. “You have friends at the Agency, friends all over. And I am going to go out on a limb here and say that you know good and damn well that I am Agency, too.”
Ding nodded slowly. “I’m not going to lie to you, kid. I am aware that you wear two hats.”
“Are you going to tell me the real reason you guys are here?”
“No mystery to that. We’re here to find out who the hell Zha is. He is trying to get into our network.”
“Trying to? He has not succeeded?”
“Not that we know of.” They had lied to Yao about that. “Sorry, kid. We needed your help, and we wanted to help you. I fed you a little bullshit along the way.”
“Fed me a little bullshit? So you came all the way to Hong Kong to tail a hacker who is trying to hack your network? It sounds like you have me on a steady diet of bullshit.”
Chavez sighed. “That’s part of the reason. We are also aware he is a person of interest in the UAV attack. We see our interests, and America’s interests, dovetailing nicely here, and we wanted to support you in your investigation.”
“How do you know he was involved in the UAV attack?”
Chavez just shook his head. “Word gets around.”
Yao did not seem satisfied by this answer, but he moved on. “What is Jack Junior’s role in this?”
“He’s an analyst at Hendley Associates. Simple as that.”
Yao nodded. He didn’t know what to make of Hendley Associates, but he knew Domingo Chavez had as much or more credibility than anyone who had ever worked in the U.S. intelligence community. Chavez and company were providing him with the assets he needed to tail and, he hoped, identify some of the people working with Zha. He needed these guys, despite the fact they weren’t exactly part of his team.
“The Agency is not buying into the fact that Zha is part of the UAV attack. They think it was a state actor of some sort, maybe China, maybe Iran, and since Zha clearly isn’t working for either of them over here, they figure he’s not involved.”
“We figure differently, and, apparently, so do you.”
“I do.”
Just then Gavin Biery called Chavez, and Ding turned on his speakerphone so Yao could hear. “Bingo. We have a match on one of the young men, the guy in the black shirt. His name is Chen Ma Long. It says he lives in Shaoxing, on the mainland. He was a known member of an organization called the Tong Dynasty.”
“The Tong Dynasty?” Yao said with surprise.
“What’s that?” asked Chavez.
“That’s an unofficial name the NSA gave to an organization that was around from about 2005 to 2010. It was run by Dr. K. K. Tong, sort of the father of China’s offensive cyberwar systems. He used tens of thousands of civilian hackers, developed them into a kind of army. This kid must have been part of that group.”
“Where is Tong now?”
“He was thrown in prison in China for corruption but escaped. No one has heard from him in a couple of years. Word is the Chicoms want him dead.”
“Interesting. Thanks, Gavin,” said Chavez. He ended the call with Biery and then turned his attention back to Yao.
“We aren’t going to learn anything more than what we already know about whatever the hell is going on over here, because it’s not going to take any time at all for the Triads to pick up on the fact that Zha has grown a really long tail. Once they see these guys following Zha, Zha is going to disappear.”
“I know.”
“You need to check with Langley one more time. If they want him, they better take him right fucking now, because he will either run to the mainland, in which case you’ll never find him, or else the Marshals Service is going to arrest him, in which case he’ll enter the justice system. If he does that he’ll get a lawyer, a pat on the ass, and three hots and a cot. The Agency won’t learn a damn thing about who he’s working with.”
Adam nodded. Chavez could tell the prospect of losing Zha Shu Hai was eating the young NOC up.
“I already talked to Langley. They said they didn’t think Zha was involved, but they would kick it over to the Pentagon, since it was their system that got hacked,” said Adam.
“And what did the Pentagon say?”
“I have no idea. I try and communicate with Langley as little as possible.”
“Why is that?”
“Pretty much everybody knows that there is a leak at Beijing Station. The Pentagon is aware CIA is compromised in its affairs in China, too, so I doubt they would let us know if they were interested in Zha.”
“A leak?”
“I have been living with that reality for a while. Too many Agency initiatives involving China have foundered in ways that we can only figure were due to inside information about our activities. I try to keep most of my activity very low-profile. I don’t like letting Langley know what I’m up to, in case the Chicoms do something to stop me. Even though HK isn’t the mainland, per se, there are Chinese spies all over.”
Chavez said, “Maybe that leak is the reason Fourteen-K doubled their guard on Zha and started doing SDRs every couple of hours.”
Yao said, “That only makes sense if the Fourteen-K are working with the Chicoms, and that just does not track with everything I’ve seen or heard about the Triads.”
Ding’s phone beeped. It was Ryan, and Ding put the call on speaker.
“What’s up, Jack?”
“The two younger Americans, the guys I saw on the ferry, just paid their tab and hit the road.”
“Good. Maybe they are calling it a night. And the two suits?”
“Still in the same place, still glancing over at Zha and company every thirty seconds like clockwork. Pretty obvious.”
“Okay,” said Ding. “I’m heading back in. Wait for me to take the eye, and then you can go back out front.”
“Roger that,” said Jack.
Chavez entered the club through the back door. It led to a long narrow staircase that descended to a hallway. Chavez passed doors to bathrooms and a kitchen area, and then he stepped back into the club, walked past Zha and his entourage in the corner, and returned to the bar. Ryan left through the front entrance and went back to the noodle shop on Jaffe and ordered a Tsingtao beer.
A minute after Ryan returned to his post he announced, “Here come the Fourteen-K. I’ve got close to a dozen goons who just got out of a pair of silver SUVs; they are all wearing jackets and it’s eighty degrees, so I’m going to guess they are packing. They are heading through Club Stylish’s door.”
Yao said, “Shit. Ding, you think we should back out of the area?”
Chavez replied, “It is your call, but I am not compromised at all here at the bar, other than the fact I’ve been mumbling to myself every few minutes. How ’bout I just sit tight to make sure the consulate guys don’t get into any trouble with all the new muscle around.”
“Roger that, but be careful.”
After a few moments the Triad presence increased all around Club Stylish. A dozen obvious gunmen fanned out and took up positions in the corners and around the bar.