“The Chinese do,” Foley said. She glanced around the room, as if to assure herself that no one had snuck in since she last checked. “It goes without saying that this is extremely sensitive information.”
Ryan nodded for her to continue. In the end, he had to trust somebody, and if he could not trust the people around him now, all was lost anyway.
“Our sources tell us that one of the reasons Beijing is so proud of Professor Liu is that he is behind much of their engineering progress in the way of propulsion technology. By that I mean he designed it himself. So much of what they have, they’ve been given by the Russians or stolen from us and reverse-engineered. As Bob so bluntly pointed out, China’s naval exploits have caused them to lose a lot of face in the past few hundred years. Professor Liu is not only a genius, he is
“I believe everyone here is familiar with VICAR, our asset in Russia.” Foley didn’t go into detail, but Ryan knew VICAR was Erik Dovzhenko, an SVR officer who assisted members of The Campus in thwarting an Iranian missile attack. According to Foley, Jack Junior knew the man well and trusted him completely, but father and son never spoke of it.
Foley gave a nod to Canfield.
“Late last night,” he said, “one of our case officers received a flash communication from VICAR. Apparently, MSS operatives first believed the professor had defected or was taken by the Russians. They confronted agents working for the SVR in a Huludao pastry shop near the professor’s home. One of the male Russian agents was killed in the initial contact, while an adult female and her adult brother were taken prisoner. The MSS officers questioned them, but eventually ascertained the Russians didn’t have the professor. According to the female Russian, the Chinese were still working out the details of their theory when a new man kicked in the door and started shooting. She thought he may have been a gangster, but he immediately shot one of the MSS operatives as soon as he burst in. She was just able to escape—”
Ryan raised his hand. “Hang on a minute. Someone other than the MSS officers was shooting?”
“That’s correct, Mr. President. The newcomer. The female SVR agent described him as a tall Asian male with a long coat and a felt hat, a fedora, but she didn’t stay around long enough to get a good look at his face. She told her SVR handler that she heard at least five more shots as she fled down the alley. Local news says three Chinese and two Russians were killed at a Huludao pastry shop in an apparent botched robbery. The SVR report eventually landed on VICAR’s desk. In VICAR’S words: ‘The Chinese know you have Liu Wangshu.’”
“And we’re sure we don’t?” Ryan asked. “One of your operatives doesn’t have him on ice at some Busan safe house right now waiting for the heat to blow over?”
“That possibility did cross my mind,” Foley said. “Liu Wangshu would be a good get, for whoever gets him. He’s privy to all sorts of treasure regarding Chinese submarine technology. But I’ve been assured by station chiefs and DIA assets in that part of the world that we are in no way culpable for this.”
Ryan finished off his coffee and set the mug on the side table, none too gently. “Okay. Then tell me who is culpable.”
“We do not know, Mr. President,” Foley said. “Not yet. There’s a possibility that he’s gone into hiding on his own, wanting to defect. The Chinese want him bad, which means he’s likely holding timely intelligence. If he’s getable, we should get him.”
“Agreed,” Ryan said.
He looked around the room. Everyone present appeared to know something he did not.
Yet.
“Let’s have it,” he said, eyeing Mary Pat.
“Though Professor Liu’s disappearance is problematic, the remainder of VICAR’s communication is far more troubling.” She gave an exhausted sigh. “Sir, it appears we have a mole problem.”
“A mole?” Ryan whispered.
The revelation wasn’t a surprise. Wise intelligence organizations operated under the assumption that there was always a mole in their midst. What startled Ryan was that the unflappable Mary Pat Foley, who’d been doing this job since the days of dead drops in Gorky Park and midnight rendezvous in East Berlin, thought the information important enough to bring to him. That meant she believed the mole was highly placed enough to be a real danger.
The KGB had run moles in the U.S. government and the U.S. government ran moles in the KGB. Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich Filatov, cryptonym CARDINAL, became personal friends with Ryan after Ryan had assisted in his extraction from the Soviet Union.
But for the names and faces, nothing had changed.
“According to VICAR’s report, much of his information was verified by a Russian asset working within the Chinese Ministry of State Security. This Russian asset suggested to VICAR that the PRC was checking the depth of U.S. involvement regarding Professor Liu with a source they had embedded within the U.S. intelligence apparatus.”
