Shadow Catcher

  “Red Dragon, this is Jade Zero One. I am alive. I repeat, this is Jade Zero One. I am alive and requesting immediate evac.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Nick and Drake picked up their cell phones from security as they left the CIA headquarters building. A blue box on Nick’s screen informed him that he’d missed a call from McBride. He pressed the box to dial him back.

  “I’m secure. What’ve you got for me?” he said as soon as McBride picked up.

  “I found your guy,” answered McBride. “His name is Feng Wei, but that’s just an alias. You’re right to be suspicious. He’s not part of the regular staff at the Chinese Embassy in Kuwait.”

  “That figures.” Nick stopped at the edge of the sidewalk out in front of the CIA building.

  Drake mouthed, “What?” but Nick motioned for his friend to be patient.

  “Where does he usually work?”

  “Everywhere. He’s a courier. I have pictures of him in the diplomatic districts of a half-dozen major cities,” said McBride. “He spends most of his time in London, but that’s not where he went when he left Kuwait.”

  The line went silent for a moment. Nick remembered that McBride liked to add a dramatic pause when he had a juicy bit of intelligence. “Come on, Will. Spill it.”

  “You see, once I had a name and multiple pictures from our database, I was able to run a search for current intelligence from other agencies,” McBride explained with enthusiasm. “That got me a hit from the Brits that had him boarding a flight to Beijing.”

  “So he’s in Beijing.”

  “No,” said McBride, a little annoyed at being interrupted. “You don’t understand. The Brits think he’s in Beijing, but he’s not.” McBride paused again.

  Nick pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the impending headache. “Where did he go?”

  “So then I played a hunch. I used this algorithm that Scott developed and ran it on the public cameras in . . .”

  “Will!”

  “He’s here.”

  “As in, he’s here in Washington, DC?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a ninety-two percent match for Feng Wei on a guy getting into a black sedan at Dulles just a few hours ago. I tracked the car to the Chinese Embassy. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t left since.”

  “Good work,” said Nick. “Keep an eye on it. He’s got to leave that embassy sometime. When he does, I want to know where he goes. And now that you have a face and a name, there’s something else that I want you to do. I have a hunch of my own.”

  A few moments later, Nick hung up the phone and started walking toward the car.

  “What’s up?” asked Drake, jogging to catch up.

  “Our suspect from Kuwait just turned up in DC. Other than that, all Will got was a name: Feng Wei. I wish we knew more about this guy.”

  Drake grabbed Nick’s elbow and stopped him. “I think I can help with that.”

  Back inside the CIA headquarters building, Nick and Drake stood waiting at the reception desk. “I thought you didn’t like spooks,” whispered Nick.

  “This one is different,” Drake replied mysteriously. “Terri is one of the CIA’s top analysts for China.” He tilted his chin toward the security checkpoint. “Here she comes, now.”

  Nick turned to see a stunning brunette gracefully descending the stairs beyond the metal detectors, one hand lightly caressing the rail. She paused at the bottom step and waved at Drake.

  “I should have known,” said Nick.

  “Shut up. Our relationship is entirely professional.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Terri,” said Drake, waving back as she walked over, “this is Nick, the guy I’m always telling you about.”

  Terri smiled genuinely and squeezed Nick’s hand. “Terri Belfacci,” she said in a melodious voice. “I’m so glad to finally meet Drake’s sidekick. I hear you two have survived quite a few scrapes together.”

  Nick elbowed Drake in the ribs as Terri led them back through security. “Sidekick?”

  Drake coughed and lengthened his stride to catch up to Terri. “We need to find out about a Chinese courier named Feng Wei.”

  Terri halted abruptly, her power heels clicking sharply together on the granite floor. “How have you two come across the Black Dragon?”

  “The what?” asked Drake.

  “Feng Wei is an alias,” said Terri, folding her arms. “He also goes by Wulóng, the Black Dragon. His real name is still unknown.”

  “He’s a suspect in a little investigation we’re conducting,” explained Nick. “What else can you tell us about him?”

  “I can tell you that we have good intel that he recently returned to Beijing. I can also tell you that you need to coordinate with us if you’re crossing paths with this guy. He’s dangerous.”

  “I think we can handle a courier,” said Drake.

  Terri shook her head. “The Black Dragon is a legendary Chinese symbol. Its meaning is hard to translate into English, but it combines the ideas of power and death. Wulóng is no ordinary embassy grunt. He’s a former PLA Special Forces operative, and like the symbolic dragon, wherever he goes, death follows.”

  Terri relaxed her stern expression and leaned closer to Drake, flirtatiously brushing a hand down his arm. “You know, you could have asked me about Wulóng over a secure line. You didn’t have to come all the way over here. Unless, of course, you just wanted to see me.”

  Drake blushed. “Well, we, uh . . .” he stuttered.

  She put her fingers to her dark red lips in mock surprise. “Oops. I just embarrassed the great Drake Merigold, the most eligible bachelor in DC’s covert society.” She squeezed his hand sweetly, but he did not reciprocate.

  Terri caught her breath and dropped his hand. “You’re off the market,” she said accusingly. “You’re seeing that grease monkey again, aren’t you?”

  “Amanda is a propulsion engineer,” said Drake quietly.

  “That’s a politically correct term for someone who works on engines; ergo, grease monkey.” Her voice turned cold. “Hmph, that’s weird. She didn’t mention you at all when I saw her this morning.”

  “Wait,” said Nick. “You saw Amanda Navistrova here? Today? What was she doing at the CIA?”

  Terri’s cheeks flushed. “I don’t know. I just bumped into her in the cafeteria.” She frowned at Drake. “Amanda and I don’t talk much.” After a moment of awkward silence, her smile returned, a little more forced this time. She put her hand on Drake’s arm again. “You’re not totally hooked. Otherwise you wouldn’t have made an excuse to come over and see me.”

  “Actually,” interjected Nick, “Wulóng is more of a side interest. We really came here to look into one of your lost agents. A Book of Honor inductee named David Novak. Joe Tarpin helped us out, but he had to leave us to get to a meeting.”

  Terri wrinkled her nose. “Left you in the lurch, huh. That sounds like Joe. So what did you think of the physical archive?”

  “You mean the book?” asked Nick.

  “No, no, no,” she said, waving her hands. “I mean the personal-effects archive. You can’t study an agent in the Book of Honor without getting into their archive box.” She looked from one to the other. “I gather from your blank expressions that you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “We didn’t know to ask for it,” said Drake.

  “Well, Joe should have told you.” Terri put her hands on her hips and huffed. “You men have no ability to communicate. If you want to dig up the dirt, you’ve got to call a woman. You two boys go back to your clubhouse,” she said, turning and walking back toward the stairs. “I’ll resurrect your missing agent’s effects and have them sent to you. And Drake”—she paused on the first step and turned, holding her hand up to her ear like a phone and shaking it—“call me.”

  * * *

  Wuló
ng spotted the midnight blue Mustang as it passed his position off Dolly Madison Boulevard. They were headed south, just as Hei Ying had predicted. “Tsk, tsk.” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. How sad that these Americans cared so little for their craft.

  He found it astoundingly easy to enter this country. And once inside, he could travel virtually anywhere unchallenged, acquire almost any equipment that he needed. The American spies had to know of their country’s vulnerabilities, yet they drove straight from one intelligence site to the other, using none of the standard evasion techniques. Such carelessness showed a lack of discipline, a lack of respect.

  Wulóng maintained his distance, even though his targets gave no indication of wariness. He could drive up beside the unprotected car and finish them right here if he chose. But then, as General Zheng had taught him, timing was everything.

  As the Mustang joined the 395 to cross over the Potomac, Wulóng’s cell phone rang.

  “Do you have them?”

  Wulóng gripped the steering wheel a little tighter at the sound of the caller’s deep, unnatural voice. These Americans and their gadgets could be amusing, but at a certain point, it just became an annoyance. “You are still using a distortion device,” he said, keeping his own voice as smooth and even as always. “It seems that you still do not trust me, Hei Ying.”

  “I mean no offense,” Hei Ying replied. “It is just that, in our business, to share information is to lose control of it. You and I know that very well.”

  “Of course.” Several cars ahead, Wulóng watched the Mustang turn on to Suitland Parkway, headed for Andrews. “The targets are approaching their base. I will not be able to follow. At which gate should I position myself to pick them up again?”

  “Do not trouble yourself,” Hei Ying replied. “I have the primary target’s home address.”

  “Tsk, tsk.” Wulóng clicked his tongue again as he hung up the phone. Such utter carelessness. Such disrespect.

  CHAPTER 29

  “What do we know, gentlemen?” asked Walker, reclining in his big leather desk chair.

  Nick nodded to McBride, who manned a laptop sitting on the edge of the colonel’s desk. A picture of a young man seated in front of an American flag opened on the smart glass wall. “This is our objective, David Novak,” Nick began. “According to the Book of Honor, Novak perished on New Year’s Day 1988.” The picture shrank into the corner, replaced by an old map of the Taiwan Strait. “He was flying a low-level reconnaissance mission here, over Fujian Province in China, as part of a Taiwan-based CIA operation called Distant Sage.”

  “The record says that Novak was shot down by a surface-to-air missile,” added Drake. “It also says that photographs, taken at the same time by an ultra-high-altitude SR-71 Blackbird, showed no evidence of a parachute. However, it’s possible that the Blackbird photos did not catch the parachute or that Novak somehow survived the crash.”

  Walker sat forward in his chair and regarded the photo of Novak with a contemplative scowl. “But if he was killed,” he said presently, “then it would mean that the Chinese are spoofing us. They might be trying to lure us into a political trap, an artificial version of the Hainan incident, when their fighter collided with our P-3, forcing an aircraft full of classified equipment to land at Lingshui. That accident netted the Chinese plenty of political and intelligence capital. It’s just their style to contrive a way to make it happen again.”

  “We considered that,” said Nick. “But then there’s this.” The Distant Sage report appeared on the wall. A highlighted section of text expanded and filled the digital space. “The voice in the intercept used the phrase ‘Red Dragon.’ According to this, it’s an authentication code, to be used if a pilot was forced to call for help over an open frequency. That way, the Agency could be sure the radio call wasn’t a Chinese trick. The thing is: if an authentication code is ever used, it has to be scrapped.” Nick leaned forward and placed his fingertips on Walker’s desk. “No Distant Sage operative ever had to use Red Dragon. Technically, it’s still a valid code.”

  “Yes, but if Novak survived the crash,” argued Walker, “the Chinese could have tortured the phrase out of him and then killed him.”

  Nick straightened up and opened his hands. “You’re right. It’s a risk. But no matter how you look at it, there’s a chance that an American agent is still alive in southern China, and he’s calling for help. We can’t begin to imagine what Novak has been through for his country. We have to attempt a rescue.”

  “Let’s say I let you go after him,” said Walker. “How do you know where to start?”

  Drake stepped in front of the wall. Behind him, a satellite map of Fujian Province opened up. “McBride’s intercept was only the first of many. Molly’s intelligence team dug into the Global Hawk data for the last two days. Novak is repeating his call every hour.” Several lines appeared on the map, running from different points along the Fujian coast. They all intersected in a small area, deep in the rain forest. “Using directional data from the Global Hawk intercepts, we’ve been able to narrow the source down to an area of less than five hundred square meters.”

  “That’s still too big for the kind of snatch-and-grab that we’re talking about,” said Walker.

  “Joe helped us with that one,” said Nick, gesturing toward the CIA man, who leaned against the back wall. “In fact, his discovery is what makes this rescue possible.”

  “I got lucky,” said Tarpin. He offered a modest smile, but he clearly relished his moment in the limelight. He strolled to the center of the room. “While I was gathering the digital files for Nick, I found a reference to a Distant Sage safe house in China called the Palace. I also found a set of coordinates. You’ll never guess where they fell.”

  A red dot appeared on the map near the center of the area formed by the radio intercepts.

  Nick tapped the red dot with his finger. “The audio intercepts and the intelligence both indicate that Novak is waiting for us right here. But the Chinese could intercept those radio calls too. That means we’re in a race, and we’re way behind. If we’re going to rescue this man, we’ve got to launch a mission tonight.”

  The colonel gazed down at his desk and slowly rubbed his hands together. After a few moments he looked up, his fingers steepled, his eyes drifting across the faces of his team. “All right, gentlemen,” he said finally. “It’s time for Mr. Novak to come home.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Wulóng ran his flat-bottomed skiff in among the trees on the eastern shore of the Port Tobacco River, less than fifty meters south of the target’s home. The skiff’s shallow draft allowed him to run it right up to the shore, so that the water only came up to the shins of his waders as he dragged it under the cover of some low-hanging branches.

  He pulled two small aluminum cases out of the boat and then removed the waders before heading farther into the trees. Wulóng smiled to himself. Opulence had a price. The American could not have chosen a more accessible dwelling. The water allowed Wulóng stealthy access and a quick route of escape. The tall windows at the front and rear gave him a better view of the interior than he could have possibly hoped for. Best of all, a thick grove of trees surrounded the house on all sides except for the shore, covering his approach from almost every angle. His smile broadened. It would also mute the screaming.

  Finding a well-concealed vantage point, Wulóng set his cases down and popped the latches. The cell phone jammer alone took up one entire case. The powerful transmitter would block calls coming in and out of an area with a two-hundred-meter diameter, enough to cover this house as well as those on either side. The other case contained everything else that he needed: wire cutters, a suppressed pistol, a few other simple tools. The best jobs were the simplest, nothing complex like creating an accident or a heart attack.

  Wulóng checked his watch and then dialed his cell phone. After one ring, the line clicked. There was a sho
rt pause, presumably as Hei Ying activated the voice distortion device.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I am in position,” Wulóng reported. “When can I expect the target? I would not want to begin too early.”

  “Of course. His routine usually brings him home a little after dark. If I were you, I would start around sunset. Things are progressing nicely for me as well, events that may enable us to achieve an even greater victory. Contact me when it is done, and I will pass your success on to General Zheng.”

  A light turned on in the house as Wulóng hung up the phone. He lifted his binoculars. He could see the woman moving into the central room, carrying the child. They were alone.

  Excellent.

  * * *

  “While we wait for the colonel to call the big boys, you can show us what you’ve done with our other project,” said Nick, herding Drake and McBride into his office. Tarpin had taken his leave and headed back to Langley, and Nick had given Quinn back to Molly for more intelligence potato peeling.

  McBride obediently sat down at the computer and opened a grainy picture of Nick’s Chinese suspect. The photo was taken from above at an awkward angle. He appeared to be unaware of the camera. “Meet Feng Wei, aka Wulóng,” he said. “I blew this up from a traffic cam near the Chinese Embassy. I tried to clean it up, but there’s only so much you can do.”

  “Is he still at the embassy?” asked Drake.

  “As far as I can tell, but that’s no guarantee. There are gaps in our camera coverage.” McBride swiveled around in his chair, forcing the two pilots to back up. “However, I did find something in that other search you asked for,” he said quietly.

  Nick leaned forward. “Anything interesting?”

  McBride just grinned at the officers, enjoying their anticipation.

  “Spill it, Sergeant. We’re short on time,” said Nick impatiently.