American Traitor Page 4

  Chastised, the man said, “It’s not a done deal yet. We’re still working on it.”

  Alexander Palmer, the arbitrator by his status alone, said, “Geoff, it’s done. Turkey isn’t getting the F-35. Let’s focus on Taiwan.”

  Geoff glared at him, then flicked his eyes to the woman who’d called him out, but said nothing. Palmer said, “Can we continue?”

  The man in the JCPenney suit said, “Yes, sir. I’ll start with some background, if that’s okay.”

  Palmer nodded, and the man flicked up a slide, saying, “The problem with China is that they work in the nether zone. The hybrid zone. They don’t want to go to war with bullets. They want to win without a shot fired.”

  The first slide was about Africa, and China’s inroads into that country. “This is what the PRC calls its ‘Belt and Road’ initiative, which is nothing more than a loan shark deal. They promise to help the country in question with infrastructure at low, low interest rates, and then when the country can’t pay, they take over the infrastructure, basically owning the lifeblood of the country. Ports, airfields, oil wells, rare earth minerals, you name it, China’s sinking its teeth into the globe.”

  He punched up another slide, showing a graph of technological innovation from 1980 until the present. He said, “Beyond that, China is flexing its muscle with technology. It’s not hyperbole to say they are about to be the sole superpower of artificial intelligence. We don’t seem to care about that, but China does. While Google and others fight our own Defense Department on some misguided attempt at personal salvation, they sell their skills to China in a torrent.”

  He flipped to another graph, saying, “And China is sucking it up in a superhuman way. It has developed the technology to a point that the entire country is a living, breathing surveillance state, and we’ve helped them to do it. And I mean we, as in the United States, have helped them to do it, not in an abstract way. Our companies sell them everything from facial recognition algorithms to biometric predictive software, creating the first full surveillance state from cradle to grave, which China is using on its own population. I’d like to say we could stop the tap on that, but if we don’t sell it to them, they steal it in our universities.”

  He punched the slide deck and a graph showing Chinese economic espionage came up.

  “This is what we know, but make no mistake, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Chinese government has a huge ability to steal our technology, using what is known as the United Front Work Department, a division of the People’s Liberation Army. A dedicated member of the Politburo, its sole function is to leverage the Chinese diaspora for its own ends. They do it through appeals to the homeland as a first step, then go all the way to outright blackmail or threatening of relatives. And it’s very, very successful.”

  He flicked a slide and said, “Unlike China, we operate in a market capitalist system whereby each company operates independently. We don’t band together and talk about our actions for a united front. What happens in the end is our companies tend to hide their exposure to China for fear of a market loss. Make no mistake, China doesn’t operate that way. Every bit of data from the technology they sell here is going straight back to the PRC, from DJI drones to Huawei cell phone technology. They are kicking our ass even if we don’t admit it.”

  Chapter 7

  Jennifer laid her head against my shoulder, and I had initially hated it, because now I couldn’t move without waking her up. We had damn near fifteen hours of flight left, and she wouldn’t let me booze it up like I wanted to. If the flight attendant came by, I’d have to use sign language to get a rum and Coke, because Jennifer’s ears were tuned to the words “rum” and “Coke” even if she was sound asleep. But when I gazed at her face I knew why I let it happen. She snuggled in next to me, and honestly, I felt content. The booze cart came by and I let it go. The flight attendant looked at me, and I shook my head, letting Jennifer get her sleep.

  Two movies and fourteen hours later, I sensed something pass by our row, waking me up. I opened my eyes feeling cranky. Which is how I always felt on long flights. All I wanted to do was get off the damn plane. How long could this thing stay in the air?

  Jennifer was still sleeping on top of me, her head burrowed into my shoulder. Which aggravated me a little bit. How she could get a solid night’s sleep on an airplane was a mystery to me, and I gave a split-second thought to waking her up. I did not, of course.

  The sun had risen in between my groggy sleep and nonsleep, the light outside my airplane window growing brighter with every second. I saw the screen at my front was frozen, right in the middle of some year-old rom-com. I pulled out my phone and booted it up, logging on to the in-flight WiFi. I looked out the window and saw land below us. We’d reached the continent of Australia.

  I sent Dunkin a message, saying we were about to land in Brisbane. We had to catch another flight to Adelaide, but we’d be at his place in less than four hours. I was sure he was on his way to work, but he’d see the message before he had to lock up his phone prior to going into his secure facility.

  Dunkin’s real name was Clifford Delmonty, and once upon a time he’d worked for the Taskforce as a network operations engineer, which was a polite way to say he was a hacker. A five-foot-seven-inch computer geek, at his hiring board for the Taskforce he’d made an impossible claim that he could dunk a basketball. He thought we were looking for some superhuman physical specimen and figured nobody would test him on his claim. Since we were looking for a guy who could work miracles with electronic devices, not play point guard, we hired him. Then made him put his money where his mouth was.

  He’d failed miserably and figured he was fired on his first day. We kept him, but he now wore the callsign Dunkin as a reminder that it doesn’t pay to exaggerate. The Taskforce needed the ground truth. No spin.

  He’d worked for the Taskforce for several years and then was offered a very lucrative job by a start-up called Gollum Solutions, working on the artificial intelligence software for the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. They’d moved him to their headquarters in Australia, and he’d left an open invitation for anyone in the Taskforce to come visit. Because of Amena’s situation, Jennifer and I had taken him up on the offer. Well, Amena and the fact that Jennifer wanted to dive the Great Barrier Reef.

  I thought about texting Amena, just to let her know we’d made it, but decided to wait. The whole point of leaving her alone was to get her operating on her own two feet. No reason to create a leash on our first outing, giving her the ability to text us at every moment.

  The flight attendants came back down the row, handing out some godawful quiche for our breakfast, the mess looking like it had been scooped out of a koala’s cage. I waved the offending meal away. She said, “Can I get you some coffee?”

  I said, “I’ll have a rum and Coke, if you don’t mind.”

  Jennifer woke up, rubbed her eyes, and said, “What was that?”

  The flight attendant started to hand me my order, and Jennifer said, “Are you getting a drink? It’s six o’clock in the morning.”

  Chagrined, I said, “I guess I’ll have a cup of coffee.” The flight attendant gave it to me. I muttered, “It’s five o’clock somewhere, damn it.”

  Jennifer smiled and laid her head back on my shoulder. In seconds, she was fast asleep. I waved at the flight attendant and mouthed, “Give me the rum and Coke.”

  Chapter 8

  From the back of the room, Wolffe saw a man at the end of the table raise his hand, a question on his face. Wolffe took one look at him and had an instant dislike. He could tell the man was a self-righteous prick who spent his life in books, learning the workings of the world without ever having felt the pain. Sure of his decisions despite never having to feel the brunt of what he decided, he’d probably left a university at the age of twenty-seven with a doctorate and had spent every other waking moment giving his advice to think tanks and the NSC.

  The briefer said, “Yes?” The academic drew his hands underneath his chin, like he was pontificating to the world, and said, “Okay, okay, I get it. China is the boogeyman according to you, but selling F-35s to Taiwan is just asking to exacerbate the situation. What good will it do? Is there any proof that your dire predictions are occurring? It sounds like you’re giving us a briefing on a foregone conclusion.”

  The briefer said, “I’m showing you the proof. It’s on the screen, and these are only the penetrations we know of. If you want more proof, just look at Australia.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Exasperated, the briefer said, “You’re on the Asia counterproliferation subcommittee, right? Is that right? You’re not just a visitor here today?”

  Chagrined, the man said, “Yes, of course. I’ve been on this committee for over two years, and you didn’t answer the question.”

  The briefer pursed his lips, as if he couldn’t believe that someone that naïve was in the room. He said, “Australia is already compromised by China. If they aren’t a lost cause yet, it’s very close.”

  “How?”

  “To keep from dragging this out, just two data points: One, China now owns the port of Darwin, the largest port in Australia with a gateway to China. That didn’t just happen out of the blue. Two, there was a book written about the subversion of Australian politics by China, written by an Australian academic. China raised an objection, and the book wasn’t allowed to be published because of some arcane law about national security. That’s also not a coincidence. China raised an objection and the Australian government stopped publication. And why did they do that? Because of the economic threat China presents. The Australian government didn’t want to upset the apple cart for profits. It’s happening to them, and it will happen here. China wants to own the means of control, and they don’t want to shoot to do it.”

  Alexander Palmer said, “What does this have to do with Taiwan and the F-35s?”

  Relieved at the intrusion, the briefer flicked to the next slide and said, “Yes, sir, I was getting to that.”

  On the screen was a graph of the South China Sea, with nine dots outlining the sphere of influence China was asserting, well to the south of China’s actual coastline.

  He said, “China is also expanding on its own home front, claiming basically rocks in the ocean as their sovereign territory, which expands their reach. They get twelve nautical miles off their coast, like everyone else in the world. Find a rock at the thirteen-mile mark? They’ve just increased their sovereign territory by another twelve miles. They’ve taken over a bunch of islands in the Spratly chain—islands that are contested by a host of countries from Malaysia to Vietnam—and have now claimed those as their own, which will basically leave the entire South China Sea as the sovereign space of China. They call it the Nine-Dash Line.”

  The academic at the front of the table snorted and said, “And why do we care?”

  Exasperated, the briefer said, “We care because if the world agrees to this, we have no right of passage in the South China Sea. Jesus Christ. Can you not see this? The ring is literally designed to prevent passage for every naval vessel on the high seas in one of the most trafficked sea lanes on earth. Do I need to spell it out for you?”

  The academic said nothing. The room remained silent, so the briefer continued, “Look, once they set foot on the rocks they said they’d never militarize them. Now? They have missiles on them. They’re literally bringing in sand to increase the size, building runways and infrastructure. They’re building platforms for war.”

  The academic said, “Sounds like an Asian problem to me. What’s that got to do with us?”

  The briefer said, “Because everything they do is targeted at us. We have the largest economy in the world. They have the second largest. And they’re dominating us. Are you guys aware that Disney released an animated movie last year called Abominable, and to get a sale in China they had a map in the movie depicting the expanse of Chinese sovereignty? The Nine-Dash Line? And when the NBA and ESPN went to China for a game they kowtowed to the same map? They’re winning because we don’t care. And we’ve done nothing to prevent it. Malaysia can’t do it. Vietnam can’t do it. And we don’t do anything.”

  Calmly, juxtaposed against the earnestness of the man briefing, Palmer said, “Okay. What does this have to do with the sale of F-35s?”

  The briefer took a breath and said, “Because the one thing China can’t own is the Taiwan Strait. It’s a sea lane that defeats all of their ambitions. They can take over and demand sovereignty with the rocks to the south, but if Taiwan exists, it’s all irrelevant. It defeats all of that, because Taiwan is inside the range of their ambitions. You can’t claim jurisdiction when you have an island that claims the same. China knows this. They want Taiwan. We see a lot on the news about Hong Kong, but that’s a sideshow. At the end of the day, owning Hong Kong gives them nothing other than prestige. They need to own Taiwan, and they intend to. We need to prevent it. That’s where the F-35s come in.”

  He pressed a button and the slide show went to a blank screen showing the NSC logo. He said, “Questions on what I’ve just shown you? There are background papers here on the table.”

  There was a brief moment of silence, then the room erupted in chatter, the members of the subcommittee all trying to compete with each other for airtime about their preferred opinion. Wolffe appreciated that they wanted to debate, but it struck him as all a waste of time. It was like watching a bunch of high schoolers at a mock UN convention. Eventually he grew bored with the discussion and rose to leave. Palmer waved at him, then met him at the door.

  Wolffe said, “Not sure what this was all about. Good luck with the F-35 sale.”

  Palmer said, “It’s about China. I wanted you to see the sausage making here, in this room.”

  “Yeah, it’s sausage making all right. I’m not sure how I fit in, though.”

  Palmer glanced back into the room, making sure nobody could hear him, then said, “Because the president is thinking about targeting you guys against China. That’s why.”

  Wolffe said, “We don’t target states. That’s sacrosanct. We do substate actions only. Terrorist organizations. It’s in the charter.”

  Palmer said, “The charter might be changing. It’s not like it’s written in the Constitution.”

  Wolffe bristled and said, “You’re changing the very nature of why we exist, and we aren’t the tool for this. It’s like telling a car mechanic to fix a refrigerator. In the end, the fridge gets fixed, but at a hell of a lot more pain. Have you learned nothing about the last twenty years of war, throwing SOF into the breach because it was the easiest solution?”

  Palmer raised his hands and said, “I’m just telling you the president’s thought process. Taiwan’s election is coming up, and we expect the PRC will try some direct action to affect the outcome. He likes you guys. He thinks you can help.”

  Wolffe raised his voice. “We don’t even have a target. No mission, no intelligence, no nothing. This is completely out of the blue. I don’t need some lone wolf telling me what to do.”

  Several members of the subcommittee turned their heads at his voice. Palmer waited until they turned back around to their own conversations, then said, “Are you saying I’m a lone wolf on this? Do you forget who you work for?”

  “At this point, I really don’t know. Are you? You’re a little young, but I’m old enough to remember Oliver North and Iran-Contra. I’m not doing that here.”

  Palmer bristled and said, “You’ve been doing it for years. Don’t give me that crap. You work for me. For the Oversight Council.”

  “What the hell are you even saying? I’m your personal kill show?”

  “No, no, of course not. Just get the men ready.”

  “We don’t even have a target. That’s what we do.”

  “You don’t have a target yet. Get the men ready. Get off of Islam and start studying China. I want a team ready to go in the next week. Nothing big. Alpha exploration only. Any team but Pike’s.”

  Wolffe said, “So now you’re going to tell me the team to send? Kurt’s dead, but his ethos is not. You assholes can’t run roughshod over my organization. And it is my organization now.”

  Palmer opened the door and said, “Don’t get aggravated. This is from the president.”

  Wolffe turned, “President Hannister said any team but Pike’s?”

  “Well, no. That’s coming from me. You have plenty of teams to send, and Pike’s a little hot right now dealing with the child.”

  Which was bullshit, and Wolffe knew it. Palmer just didn’t like Pike because Pike never listened to him. But he always succeeded.

  Palmer said, “We’ll talk again tomorrow, with the Oversight Council.”

  Wolffe took the door handle and said, “Get one thing straight. I pick the team. You want one, you got it, but I pick them.”

  He was starting to leave when Palmer caught the door, saying, “What’s that mean?”

  Wolffe looked him in the eye and said, “Pike’s on his way to Australia right now, with Jennifer. He thinks he’s going on vacation, but I’m pretty sure you’ll change that plan. There’s your team. Reap what you sow.”

  Palmer said, “That’s not going to fly.”

  “It’ll fly if I say it will.”

  Palmer started to say something else and Wolffe cut him off. “Let me give you some advice. Kurt is dead. I’m his heir. Kurt didn’t play politics because of who he was. I do. You want to go to the knives, I’ll do so. And I’ll win.”

  Palmer looked at him with his mouth slightly open, amazed at the brazenness.

  Wolffe locked eyes with him and said, “It’s sort of my specialty. Outside of using a knife for real.”

  Chapter 9

  Clifford Delmonty—AKA Dunkin—pulled into his designated parking spot and removed his smartphone from his pocket, intending to drop it into his center console like he did every single day he came to work. Due to the classified nature of his job, dealing with sensitive components of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s artificial intelligence engine, the entire office he worked within was designated as a SCIF—a sensitive compartmented information facility—meaning that no outside communications devices were allowed.