There were no other cars on the road at all. It was as if we were in a tunnel chasing two cones of light at high speed toward the edge of the world.
Joe was talking, telling me again that he’d lost touch with Alison until he’d come back to the CIA nine months before. He said it was around that time that the CIA became aware of Michael Chan, a naturalized American citizen who was spying for the Chinese. They’d learned about Chan: that he’d been born in China, had come to the USA as a student, had lived and worked in Palo Alto for the last eight years, and was now teaching history at Stanford.
Joe told me that just a few months ago, Muller volunteered to work a honey trap on Chan to learn what he was passing on to Chinese intelligence and to flip him to our side if she could. And according to Joe, because of his work history with Muller, he was asked to run the operation.
Joe said now, “I told you I thought Chan had fallen hard for Alison. Of course, he didn’t know that Ali was CIA and that he was her target. He believed her cover, her job, and the business trips that enabled them to get together. But Chan was going through a stressful time, and finally, he told Muller all about it.”
“And she reported this back to you.”
“Exactly. About a month ago. Chan told Muller that a Chinese intelligence honcho was about to defect to the United States. He said this defector had powerful and deep information that could take down the Chinese government.
“Muller told me that what was driving Chan crazy was that the defector was his father. Chan Senior was planning to come to California to be with his son. He’d gotten false documents using Michael Chan’s name and address and so on, and Chan was very worried. He’d heard that some Chinese-American men living in San Francisco had been assigned to kill his father as soon as his plane arrived in the States.
“Chan was just talking to his lover, you know, Linds? He was questioning his own loyalty to the Chinese government. He was desperately concerned for his father. And he had no idea that Muller was feeding this information to us.
“And still, the information was incomplete. Chan didn’t know what plane his father would be taking to the States. Muller was going to try to get this critical detail from Chan that evening in the Four Seasons—and then, as you well know, it all hit the fan.”
My mind reeled. Chan Senior had been traveling as Michael Chan on WW 888. It was his body that had disappeared. Even as I was having this breakthrough, Joe was unwinding the story as he knew it.
Joe said, “Michael Chan was killed. Bud and Chrissy were killed. Muller disappeared, and then, the worst thing imaginable. That passenger jet went down. I’m pretty sure that the men you and your SWAT took down in Chinatown were the ones who were supposed to kill the defector: one high-profile government man.
“So what happened?” Joe asked rhetorically. “Were they cocky? Were they stupid? Did they have a shiny new toy? I don’t know why they decided to hit the plane—with a god-damned missile—but they did it.”
“My God. You think they did that on their own?”
Joe said, “I think so. Chinese intelligence was apparently stunned by the crash. They did a slick pivot and tried to blame it on the CIA. And we blamed ourselves—for not getting the intel in time to prevent the crash. The head of our internal affairs unit had to find out if I was involved. Who could blame him? After all, I was running the Muller-Chan operation.
“I was locked up and interrogated, seriously—that’s why I couldn’t call you, Linds. I was in an underground location, I don’t even know where.”
He sighed deeply, then said, “I don’t know if I have everything exactly right—but that’s pretty much what I know or have reasonable theories about.
“The Chinese made a lot of mistakes. They’re amateurs at the intelligence game. Maybe Ali Muller made mistakes as well.”
I asked Joe, “Do you think she killed Chan?”
CHAPTER 88
JOE GRIPPED THE wheel and gunned the car along the asphalt straightaway for long minutes before saying, “I’ve asked myself if Alison was the shooter a couple hundred times. Friendship aside, just bearing down on the facts, I think she’s been playing both sides—working for us, and working for the Chinese, and doing a pretty seamless job of it.”
I heard what Joe had said, but his answer was so off the hook, I had to ask him to say it again.
“Are you telling me that Muller is a double agent? That she is actually spying on us for the Chinese?”
“I’m speculating, Lindsay, but it makes sense. If she’s working for MSS, then she’s behind the murders in the hotel. Chan was betraying the Chinese by leaking classified information to her. He was an enemy and had to be eliminated. It’s almost as if they switched loyalties with each other, Chan wanting to get off the train that Muller had just gotten on.”