“There’s one thing you’re forgetting.”

  “What? Because I’m not a genius?”

  Child grinned. “Your words, not mine.”

  Leroux twirled his fingers. “On with it.”

  Child jerked his chin toward the door. “Every time that door opens, there’s a brief window where a signal can be transmitted.”

  Leroux turned toward the door, a lump forming in his throat. “Don’t tell me.”

  Child’s fingers tapped at his keyboard behind Leroux and the display updated, a series of narrow blue bands appearing, overlapping perfectly with almost every single burst detected. “I cross-referenced the security logs for the doors of each of the operations centers she was working. When the door opened, the device would transmit. All it takes is a couple of seconds.”

  “But how would it know?” asked Packman.

  Child faced the analyst. “It’s not really that difficult. It’s probably passively scanning, and if it detects either a signal it’s looking for, or simply other stray signals, it knows it can transmit. So, the door opens, signals from outside that door make it into the room, the device picks that up, fires its burst of traffic then shuts itself down immediately, probably before the door even closes. Our internal scanners are specifically set up so that when the door opens, new signals are ignored until the door closes again.”

  “Ignored?” asked Leroux.

  “Well, logged but ignored. Otherwise, every damn time someone opened the door, the alerts would be coming on that there was an unauthorized transmission in the room.”

  “That’s one hell of a security hole,” muttered Packman.

  “No shit,” agreed Child. “When this is all over, we need to figure out a solution.”

  Leroux had already come up with a solution—double doors, like a pressure hatch on the space station. But that was unimportant now. What Child had uncovered sealed the fate of Casey’s reputation. There could be little doubt now that she indeed was the mole, and it was heartbreaking. What had gone so wrong in her life for her to betray her country?

  He faced Child. “When did these transmissions start?”

  “About two months ago.”

  “All right, get all this info over to Team Two for verification. Then write an executive summary for me to bring to the Chief and Neary. We need to show progress and prove that we’re actually working to find out the truth.” He rose, heading for the door. “Send it to my phone. I’m going to go see the Chief.”

  Child nodded, attacking his keyboard. “You got it, boss.”

  Leroux opened the door, glancing up at the door frame, shaking his head at how a security hole that should have been obvious had been sitting right in front of them for years.

  28 |

  Chan’s Safe House Beijing, China

  Kane fit his mask in place as Chan inspected a set of IDs that had just dropped into the tray from the laminator. Kane pinched at the nose, adjusting the fit. “I’ve always thought Asian men had a certain dignity to them.” He still found it odd to see the reflection of a man who bore absolutely no resemblance to him mouthing his words.

  Chan glanced over at him. “I always knew you were horny for our women. I didn’t know that included our men as well.”

  Kane laughed and turned to Chan, straight-faced. “You know it was always you that attracted me, never your wife.”

  Chan stared at him, slack-jawed, then tossed his head back, roaring with laughter. “I’m telling her you said that. It’ll break her heart. She’ll probably never have me wear that mask we made of you again.”

  Kane gave him a look. “Huh?”

  Chan grinned. “You should see the one I made for her.”

  “You two are messed up.” Kane double-checked the mask was secured properly then brushed his hair and inspected his suit. “This fits perfectly.”

  “It should. It was meant for you. You’ll be happy to know that you haven’t put on any weight in the past two years.”

  “Good thing you’ve been stealing from the Agency for years, otherwise this op might not work.”

  Chan handed over the set of IDs for Kane’s cover. Kane checked the IDs, already having memorized the pertinent details. He was a Deputy Director at the Ministry of State Security. The face matched the data Langley had on file for the man, and the ID security features would pass any scan, matching the Ministry of State Security files exactly, the man’s identity borrowed by another operative just last week, Chan wisely saving the particulars.

  Kane faced Chan. “You ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you understand what’ll happen to us if we’re caught?”

  Chan gave him a look, pointing at the mask he wore. “This might make me look like I was born yesterday, but these old bones have been here twice as long as you have been, and I was born here. And what they’ll do to us is what they’re probably already doing to my wife, and the longer we sit here debating the obvious, the longer she suffers.”

  Kane bowed slightly. The man was right. No one understood more what was at stake than Chan.

  They headed for the door and an uncertain future. The chances of this working were slim, and if they were caught, because of the nature of the intel, they would be tortured to reveal anyone they had passed it on to, then would be executed. There would be no prisoner swap. They were either rescuing Bing tonight, or dying trying. There was no middle ground here.

  The stakes were simply too high.

  29 |

  Director Morrison’s Office, CIA Headquarters Langley, Virginia

  Leroux reviewed the executive summary that Child had put together of his findings as he waited for Morrison to finish up a phone call. Neary sat in a chair beside him, apparently still bearing a grudge, as the man hadn’t said a word to him, instead merely sporting a scowl the entire time. Morrison hung up the phone and smiled at them both. “Who knew Washington would be so concerned that all its spies were taking a day off?” He turned to Leroux. “I understand you have something?”

  Leroux wagged his phone. “I’ve had the details sent to both your accounts, but my team has uncovered something I thought you should know about immediately.”

  “What have you found?”

  “A series of burst transmissions, most of them sent from within operations centers manned by Casey.”

  Neary snorted with derision. “That’s not possible. All traffic is monitored and those rooms are shielded. Any attempt at a transmission would have been detected and an alert sounded.”

  Leroux wanted to punch the man in the throat. “Well, fortunately, my team isn’t as narrow-minded as some.”

  Morrison gave him a look.

  “There’s a security flaw.”

  “Nonsense. I helped design those protocols myself.”

  Leroux ignored him. “We believe that Casey carried a passive device that would scan for new stray signals that would enter the room every time the door opened. When it detected those signals, it would send a burst transmission then turn itself off. The design of the security for the OCs intentionally turns off the alerts for any new signals detected while the door is open. The burst transmissions were logged but no alerts were ever sent, and security investigating them never determined the pattern of the transmissions because they didn’t know who they were trying to match them against. Since we knew Casey was likely involved, we were able to match all of the transmissions to times when she was in the building, and most of them for when she was in an operations center, the transmissions coinciding exactly with when the logs show a door was open.”

  Morrison pursed his lips. “So, you’re saying then that she was definitely involved.”

  “I’m afraid it looks that way, sir. I can’t think of any other explanation.”

  Morrison turned to Neary. “What do you have to say about this?”

  Leroux finally looked at the man and was immensely pleased to see the shocked look on the arrogant son of a bitch. “I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Well, you could say whether you agree there’s a security flaw in your design.”

  Neary reluctantly nodded. “It would appear so. We’re going to have to figure out a way to plug it.

  “Double doors,” said Leroux. “Like an airlock.”

  Neary’s eyes slowly widened. “That’s perfect.” He inhaled deeply then extended a hand to Leroux. “I owe you an apology, young man.”

  Leroux shook the man’s hand. “Don’t worry about it. I was a bit of an asshole.”

  Neary chuckled. “My favorite type of people.” He wagged the phone, Child’s summary on the screen. “I’m going to have my people go over this, but I think it’s pretty clear that Casey was definitely involved. We still need to find that device and determine who her handler was.”

  Morrison leaned forward. “Good. Now that we’re all getting along, maybe we can start to make some rapid progress. Like you said, we need to find that device, because if it’s still transmitting, even with Casey dead, we’re still compromised. When was the last time it transmitted?”

  Leroux brought up the logs. “Yesterday morning, just before she left the ops center at the end of her shift.”

  Neary’s fingers drummed on the arm of his chair. “Did it ever transmit when she wasn’t in the building? Even once?”

  “No. The overlap was perfect.”

  “That means she took it with her at the end of the day.”

  Leroux smiled slightly. “So then it’s in her house.”

  Neary shrugged. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? I suppose she could leave it here and activate it when she got in and then deactivate it when she left at the end of the day.”

  Morrison wagged a finger. “Wait a minute. That wouldn’t make sense.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s sending a burst transmission. That means it’s recording data. The fact that it’s transmitting from within an ops center has to mean she wasn’t uploading data to it. Somebody would have noticed. It must have been recording whatever was being said in the room and then transmitting that whenever it had the opportunity.”

  Leroux’s head bobbed. “That makes sense.”

  Neary leaned on one elbow. “Actually, it doesn’t. Why wouldn’t she just record everything then transmit it when she got home?”

  “Because then the Chinese or whoever’s behind this wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the live intel. Too many of our ops concern them and they know it, so they would want whatever they could get as soon as they could get it so they might be able to act on it.”

  “There’s still something not making sense here,” said Neary, leaning back and folding his arms. “This report you sent indicates an awful lot of transmissions over the past two months. Some are within the ops center, some outside, but all within the building. And the frequency I’m seeing here suggests every time the door opened a transmission was sent, which has to mean it was automated.”

  Leroux regarded him. “Right. Your point?”

  “Well, that’s awfully risky, isn’t it?”

  “We did catch the signals.”

  “Yes, they were flagged, but no one ever thought they were coming from inside one of the ops centers, they just assumed they were stray external signals. If these had been properly looked into, like your team finally did, we might have tracked her down long ago. If I were her, I would only want to transmit when I had something worth transmitting to limit my exposure.”

  “What are you suggesting?” asked Morrison.

  “Could she have not known?”

  Leroux’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean something was planted on her and she’s actually innocent?”

  Neary shook his head. “No, I can’t see how she’s innocent. After all, she’d have to be bringing this intentionally to and from work every single day. But she might not have known how it worked. She could have been told to bring it with her and just ignore it.”

  Morrison leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers in front of his face as he tapped his chin. “Interesting, but it would have to be something that security would miss every single day. Something that it would be believable for her to bring into the room every shift.”

  Neary flicked his hand. “You’ve seen some of the stuff we’ve come up with. I have no doubt the Chinese can as well. And remember, who knows what smarts they built into it? It might not activate for ten minutes after each movement it detects, there might be a GPS in it that once it detects it’s at Langley, it shuts everything down for half an hour. There are a million ways they could have countered our security. All they had to do was disguise it well.”

  “Piece of jewelry?” suggested Leroux.

  “No, it would need to be bigger. Remember, this thing is transmitting.”

  “Sewn into her clothing?” suggested Morrison.

  Another head shake. “When’s the last time you saw a woman wear the same clothes every single day?” Neary rose. “With your permission, I’m going to go and start reviewing security footage. This all started two months ago. If we review the video from around that time, maybe we’ll get lucky and see something that changed.”

  Morrison waved his hand toward the door. “Go. The sooner we find the transmitter, the sooner we can lift Sierra Protocol.”

  Neary hesitated at the door. “Sir, just because we find the transmitter doesn’t mean this is over. We still don’t know who her handler is and whether others have been compromised.”

  “True, but I think we can agree that her handler isn’t in this building.”

  “Probably not, sir, but I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  “Yet the likelihood of him being here yesterday, despite us suspecting we had a mole, didn’t affect the operations of this agency. I’ve got thousands of assets out there, a hell of a lot of them American citizens that work for this government, that I have a duty to protect. Until Sierra Protocol is lifted, I’m not able to do my job. And you’re forgetting one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If he was satisfied with verbal or written reports delivered after the fact, he would have had no need for Casey. And the biggest risk at the moment is live intel getting out. Once we find that transmitter, we plug that hole, and any breach would be after the fact, which would greatly reduce the risk to our people.”

  “Unless there’s another mole with another transmitter.”

  Leroux smiled as Morrison wagged his finger. “You’re forgetting that we now know what to look for. The first time we see a burst transmission, we know we’ve got another problem. All we need to do is sync it to a door opening at one of our ops centers and the suspect pool becomes very narrow.”

  “You’re right, of course. I’m a little too close to the problem, I guess.” Neary opened the door. “I’ll keep you posted.” He looked at Chris. “Both of you.”

  Leroux acknowledged the courtesy and Neary left, closing the door behind him.

  Morrison regarded him. “What are you thinking?”

  Leroux scratched his chin. “Nothing.”

  Morrison eyed him. “Bullshit. What’s that famous gut of yours telling you?”

  Leroux sighed, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling between his legs. “It’s what Neary said. He’s right. The number of transmissions is risky. If the Chinese were smart enough to design something that could fool our security, that she would be bringing in and out of the building every single time she was here, surely they’d be smart enough to build a switch into it. If she’s wearing it, it could be as simple as tapping her watch, pinching an earring, any number of things that nobody would think twice about if they saw her doing it. Even if they saw her doing it repeatedly, it’d be chalked up to an affectation.”

  “Maybe they’re not as smart as you think they are.”

  “Oh, I think they’re smart enough. And if they aren’t, they’d have stolen a design. Remember, these are the same guys that were smart enough to hide a chip behind another chip on motherboards that were sold by the thousands in the West. They can definitely create some sort of hidden switch.”

  “So then, what are you saying?”

  “I have a funny feeling she had no clue.”

  Morrison leaned back. “I know she was a colleague of yours, Chris, and perhaps even a friend, but she killed herself, left a note implicating herself, and the logs don’t lie. I think it’s more likely that her handler didn’t trust her to actually transmit, so she was given a device that removed the decision-making.”

  Leroux frowned. Morrison was right. He was grasping at straws because he couldn’t believe someone he had known for so long could betray them all, putting the lives of people they were responsible for in jeopardy. If he could misjudge her, if he could misread her, who else was he wrong about? He rose with a sigh. “You’re right, sir. We’re going to follow the evidence, no matter where it may lead.”

  Morrison regarded him. “And remember that. No matter where it leads.”

  30 |

  Inova Fairfax Hospital Falls Church, Virginia

  Tong climbed back into her bed, refusing to relieve herself in a bedpan. If she intended to return to work, she had to be able to take care of herself, and one of the most basic needs a person had was the ability to go to the bathroom where God intended.

  On a toilet.

  She had managed, though her shoulder wasn’t happy about it, and she babied it as she positioned herself, waving off any help from the concerned nurse.

  “You don’t have to be a hero.”

  “I’m not trying to be a hero, but the longer I can’t work, the more lives are put at risk.”

  The nurse frowned at her. “Living in this city, I’ve learned not to bother asking what people do for a living when they talk like that. I’m sure the Agency can live without you for a week.”

  “A week?” Tong laughed. “There’s no way in hell I’m waiting a week. I intend to be at work tomorrow.”

  It was the nurse’s turn to laugh. “What you intend and what will happen, I think, will be quite different. You rip those stitches, you’ll be right back in here.”

 

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