Doomsday Option
The recruitment of PLARF source SONGBIRD and the subsequent intelligence stream of secret information on Chinese war-fighting capabilities triggered the usual feeding frenzy as Washington careerists and the tall poppies in Canberra sought to extract maximum political advantage from the windfall recruitment. This they did primarily by discussing the case—about which they knew nothing—around town as if they themselves had conceived, planned, and green-lighted the operation, and personally swam ashore on Hac Sa Beach at midnight with commando knives between their teeth.
CIA’s China Ops Division sought to protect SONGBIRD’s identity by compiling a BIGOT list documenting the limited number of officers, analysts, and managers who were read in to the true-name operational file. A separate reporting compartment encrypted HYACINTH was established with general intelligence on the Chinese military from a variety of sources, designed to obfuscate SONGBIRD’s specific position and access.
In Canberra, an Australian undersecretary for Domestic Security had vaguely heard about “recent exceptional information” involving Chinese submarines, and had repeated the comment at a National Day reception at the Indonesian Embassy within earshot of the New China News Agency correspondent who was trying to get through jostling diplomats mobbing the buffet table. The NCNA rep reported this to the military attaché at the Chinese Embassy the next day.
In Washington, a swarthy, puffed-up deputy national security adviser in the White House, known for his five o’clock shadow and imperious self-confidence, told his Taiwanese mistress—she was a lobbyist on the Hill for the Hyundai Motor Group—that his erectile dysfunction earlier that evening almost certainly was caused by worry over Chinese military buildup in the South China Sea. “That’s old news,” she said as she put Mr. Softy into her mouth, with no effect other than eliciting a petulant “No, it’s brand-new info, and you’d be distracted too if you read what I read.” His mistress reported his comment the next morning to her real employer, Zhōnghuá Minguó Guójiā ānquánjú, the National Security Agency of the Republic of China (Taiwan), an intel service so utterly penetrated by the MSS that the information was in Beijing the next morning.
About the same time in Macao, police arrested a local ring of young men who were caught smuggling MDMA—Ecstasy—from Guangzhou to sell to party-going patrons in the casinos. Desperate to ingratiate himself with interrogators, one of the men—a waiter at Fernando’s Restaurant on Hac Sa Beach—said he suspected Russian organized-crime gangs were already operating in Macao, and described a dinner meeting he had observed between a Chinese official with a military-style haircut, and a young Russian. Given the Russian connection, the police forwarded the transcript of the interrogation to the Guangzhou MSS office, from where it eventually made its way to headquarters.
In Beijing, Bao mi dan Wei, the Security Protection Bureau of the MSS, assembled the tidbits and concluded that there was a mole within the People’s Liberation Army, a mole possibly just recruited, and possibly by the Americans or the Australians. They wondered about the single sighting of a Russian, prompting the more cynical officers in the unit to posit that the SVR was now working with CIA against China. This theory was generally dismissed, but the MSS Chief in Moscow General Sun Jianguo nevertheless was directed to approach his SVR contact and to determine outright whether the Russians had any involvement.
As they sifted the few leads, the Security Bureau checked all recent foreign travel by PLA general officers. Though Macao was technically Chinese sovereign territory, an investigator from the Guangzhou MSS office was directed to determine how many generals and admirals had traveled to Macao in the past six months. The list of hair-raisingly prominent names of PLA officers was so long that the independent-minded Guangzhou office decided not to report anything. SONGBIRD’s name, accordingly, never came up.
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* * *
Dominika sat in the tastefully appointed meeting lounge in the separate liaison reception center at SVR headquarters in Yasenevo, reminding herself not to bounce her foot in front of General Sun. A tray of salaka, smoked fish on buttered bread topped with melted cheese, was on the table between the armchairs, along with a sweating pitcher of kompot, a cold fruit beverage that was a staple in the liaison lounge, vodka being reserved for more ceremonious occasions.
Following the president’s order that Colonel Egorova establish a relationship with the MSS, she had seen the unctuous general three times, including once for lunch, but the conversation never extended beyond liaison niceties and nonsubstantive subjects. She needed to engage this doddering Chinese grandfather more closely, but had made no progress. Dominika had assessed the general each time to identify his motivations, discover his vulnerabilities, sniff for weaknesses—women, whiskey, money—but there was nothing. Further attempts to elicit who his Moscow contacts were, and whether he was engaged in classical recruitment operations, likewise came up empty. His yellow aura did not change appreciatively with his moods.
“Good morning, Colonel,” said General Sun. “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice. I apologize for the urgency of my request.” He was wearing his forest-green uniform, with a modest block of ribbons on his chest, and three bright-yellow stars on his epaulets, which were the same shade as the steady unperturbed halo behind his head. As usual, his eyes did not linger on her bust or legs—there had never been even the slightest whiff of prurient interest—and Dominika had shelved for the moment the idea of engineering a “bump” on the general with a Sparrow.
“It’s always a pleasure to see you, General Sun,” said Dominika. “How can I be of service?”
“The matter is delicate and embarrassing,” said Sun. “Our counterintelligence units have uncovered unsubstantiated indications that a high-ranking PLA officer recently may have been targeted for recruitment by an unknown service.”
“That is always an upsetting development,” said Dominika. The general clasped and unclasped his hands. Dominika forced her foot to stay still.
“I am pained even to raise it, but there are unsubstantiated reports of a possible meeting between a Chinese official and a young Russian in Macao. Nothing is substantiated; all we have is the single sighting.”
“What is your question, General?” said Dominika evenly.
“Forgive me, but I must ask you officially, as the Chief of Counterintelligence, are there any SVR recruitment operations in China?”
Dominika kept her face shut down even as the thought boiled from the pit of her stomach, crept up her spine, and volleyed around the top of her head. It’s Nate, she thought. I’m sure of it, I can feel it, it’s a false-flag pitch, Benford’s behind it, they’re up to their old tricks, pitching a Chinese officer as a Russian. Thanks very much, fellows, you could have given me some warning, but that wouldn’t have happened, not in a million years.
“General, I can answer with complete honesty that there are no human SVR operations, in China, or against Chinese interests anywhere,” said Dominika. Technically, she was telling the truth: there were no ongoing human recruitment operations, but that did not include massive Russian SIGINT and ELINT collection programs along China’s northern border and Far East Pacific Coast. General Sun smiled. He was aware of the distinction, and recognized the evasion.
“I never thought so myself,” he said. “But I had to ask. Please excuse the presumption.” His yellow halo was steady.
“But your counterintelligence problem remains,” said Dominika. “What are your next steps?”
“With the most welcome confirmation that your service is not involved, we can proceed to investigate other possibilities,” said the general.