I said, “How? They won’t use the airlines because they know we’re right on their ass, and they have to assume we’re working with the Aussies as a Five Eyes country, monitoring all egress avenues.”
Brett came down the hall, saying, “I have a brochure for a place called Quicksilver. It’s a dive platform out on the Great Barrier Reef.”
I said, “They’re getting him out by boat? That makes no sense. It’s like forty days to China.”
Jennifer said, “It’s a long way to China by boat, but it’s a short jump to an airfield outside of Australia. They could go to New Zealand, or Indonesia. All they want to do is cut the tie with Australia because they know we’re looking.”
I said, “Shit. So we have no idea where to go next?”
Knuckles stood up from the body at the door and said, “Maybe not.” He held up a card and said, “This is an office in Taiwan.”
Jennifer took it, then said, “This is a business card for that PLA front company the Taskforce found. Ju-Long Import/Export.”
She flipped it over, then said, “It’s got a handwritten date and time on here. Two days from now.”
Chapter 67
Jerry Tribble pretended to work at his computer station as Yuan Bo paced the floor behind him, berating another man in Chinese. Smartly, Yuan had all of the computer stations in the room against the wall, the screens facing back into the open space, preventing employees from doing something that couldn’t be seen.
But Tribble was smart as well.
Upon his hiring, he’d been required to turn in his own laptop and cell phone in exchange for a “corporate” cell phone and laptop, both free of charge as if that was a perk of the job, but Tribble knew beyond a shadow of a doubt they were being tapped and tracked—which actually gave him an advantage. When he wanted to do something in the city outside of their view, he simply left the devices at home.
He took them along often enough to establish a pattern in his neighborhood, visiting places such as a noodle shop and café repeatedly, lulling the Chinese into a false sense of security that caused physical surveillance to cease, with them instead relying on the tracking of the devices.
He’d also been required to turn over his social media accounts passwords as a condition of the contract. The reason stated was that they needed to protect themselves from outside publicity and bad press, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew it was another way to track him. He was sure his home desktop computer had become infected with all sorts of malware through his own social media, and they were now watching his every move to determine if he communicated with any unauthorized individuals—something he needed to do with his company.
He could have simply bought a new, stand-alone computer for communications with his home office, but he had no doubt they had thought of that and had his WiFi access tainted, or had even penetrated his apartment and searched it, planting things that would trigger in the event of an unauthorized communication. He couldn’t trust the integrity of anything left behind while he was at work. So he’d gone a different route. A Trojan horse route.
The “company” computers in the lab were also monitored, but not with embedded malware. They were surveilled simply as a result of being on the network of the Twelfth Bureau, meaning that each stand-alone system could be manipulated—just like they had done to his own systems.
The Chinese were very good at their job, the entire lab fortified against outside intrusions, but they were naïve about the security from an insider threat. He thought it fitting that he would escape all of their hidden systems simply by using the computer he’d been assigned at his desk.
He’d implanted a very small chat program that piggybacked off of the VPN system the Twelfth Bureau used. He had no doubt that its version of a “virtual private network” was, in fact, not private at all, but the backbone was. They needed him to be able to talk securely to people all over the world, and had built the system for that purpose—as long as they could listen. All he needed to do was use their encryption and then cut them out of the loop.
It hadn’t been hard.
He saw an avatar appear on the left side of his screen. A blonde woman wearing a bikini and beckoning him with a finger. He glanced behind once more, saw he was clear, and clicked on the avatar. A chat window appeared at the bottom of his screen.
He typed:
—What’s up?
—Did you give access to the PRC for Stargrazer?
He leaned back, wondering why the question had come. He’d been trying to sell the Chinese on the system since he’d been in country. U.S. law enforcement had been a boon, but getting the Chinese on board would set him up for life, given their lack of concern over privacy.
He typed:
—No. Why?
—We just had a search for a guy in Taiwan. From Taiwan. It’s an official member of the government. The access was from their version of the FBI. They used a guest trial account. Just wondering.
Guest account? He typed:
—What account?
—The one you gave to the National Security Bureau of Taiwan six months ago. They didn’t buy the program, but have now accessed it. We thought it might be some contact of yours from mainland China inside Taiwan.
He read the text, drumming his fingers on the desk, thinking. Given what he knew now, he believed they might be right, but just on the opposite side of the mirror.
—Why did you think it was the PRC? Instead of an actual member of the NSB?
—One, because the guy they searched is a high-ranking officer in the ROC Air Force. Why would they need to use our systems to find that? They’d already know. Two, it didn’t come from their HQ. It was a local IP address in town on a civilian laptop. We thought it was some misdirection from you to the PRC, trying to make a sale.
He typed:
—No. But this might be the sale. Send me the information. Both the target and the login of the man who accessed the website.
—Will do.
Ten seconds later, he had a package on the VPN. He downloaded it onto a thumb drive, then closed out the chat. He turned around, saw Yuan, and waved him over.
Yuan approached and said, “What? Are you done with the second video?”
He said, “Yes, I am, and it’s pretty good. Exactly what you wanted.”
Yuan became excited. “It’s pristine? You can’t tell the alteration?”
“It’s as good as I can get it. Look, the biggest problem for these things is the actual words or facial expressions inserted. If you create a video of a guy making facial tics he never does, it’s easy to call it a fake. In this case, all I could do was insert your language. I don’t speak Chinese, so I don’t know if the president of Taiwan would have ever uttered the words. I don’t know his mannerisms or his habitual verbal tics. If you did, then we’re good.”
“Let me have it.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No. I want to give it to the other man. The one paying the bills. It’s my contract, and it’s my product.”
Yuan said, “This is my program. I pay your contract.”