“Exactly,” Mary Pat said, returning to her customary seat. “And since the mole has some connection to the CIA’s China desk, the issues overlap. Giving the Agency point on this could put Adam Yao, VICAR’s handler, in danger, not to mention rendering any mission a failure before it even gets off the ground. Mr. President, I believe this would be a good time to utilize the services of our friends at The Campus.”
It wasn’t lost on Ryan that his friend had suddenly grown more formal. The Campus was an off-the-books quasi-government entity that performed contracted work under the guise of former Senator Gerry Hendley’s financial arbitrage firm across the river in Virginia. Ryan and Hendley had formed it, years before, for missions such as this, that required a deft touch, without the layers of bureaucracy attendant to even the best government agency. Ryan’s old friend John Clark ran the show under Hendley, serving as director of operations. An extremely capable man leading a talented team. Still, for the most part, they acted independently… a separation of powers, so to speak. Activating them personally was something Ryan never took lightly. Beyond that, sending in The Campus meant sending in his own son.
“It looks like we are indeed thinking the same thing,” Ryan said. “Chinese intelligence is hunting for this Uyghur woman. Perhaps we should look in that same direction. Do we have a starting point to give Clark?”
Foley leaned back, folded her arms, and crossed her ankles, staring up at the ceiling. “Didn’t this place feel larger when we used to have to venture over here from our little cubicles at Langley?”
Ryan waited. Mary Pat often took a beat or two to answer, while she thought things through.
“We know her ten-year-old daughter, Hala, is staying with Medina’s sister in Kashgar. We have a tentative address, a newly renovated area not far from the Jiefang street market.”
“Stands to reason that Medina Tohti will want to make contact with her daughter at some point,” Ryan said. “Clark’s started with less and gotten what he was after.”
“Adam Yao’s worked with The Campus before,” Foley said. “I trust him completely. He can help them with logistics getting into China.” She chuckled. “I’ve gotta say, this is the perfect job for Clark and his team — finding a woman who has likely aligned herself with a separatist group that is on our terrorist watch list and is actively being hunted by law enforcement. Then snatching this woman out from under the noses of not only the militant separatist, but Vice Admiral Zheng, the butcher’s intelligence operatives in the midst of one of the most heavily surveilled locations on the planet.”
“You’re right,” Ryan said. “Tailor-made for John Clark. Mind if I ask where they are?”
Mary Pat looked at her watch. “About now,” she said, “I’d imagine they’re in the air.”
Domingo “Ding” Chavez tapped his cell phone to answer the call. The interior of the thirty-year-old Russian Mi-17 helicopter squealed and chattered as if voicing strong objections to being in the air. The oil company had purchased this one from the Cambodians in the late nineties, after the Dry Season Offensive when they’d used it to go after the Khmer Rouge. Chavez consoled himself with the fact that while most Russian aircraft were lacking in finesse, they were generally cloddishly overbuilt — and could be fixed with a hammer and a screwdriver. A puddle of oil along the bulkhead said this bird was likely overdue for such an appointment. Chavez was partial to the Bell UH-1H. Though not exactly cheap, surplus birds could be had for a quarter of a million. Still, he understood that folks around the former Saigon might still have a little aversion to Hueys thumping the air over their heads.
Chavez pushed the tiny boom mic away from his mouth as he spoke, using a natural voice, despite the racket in the chopper. Connected to his phone via Bluetooth, the Sonitus Molar Mic clipped to his back tooth easily picked up his end of the conversation while transmitting incoming sounds via his jawbone instead of his eardrum. The device was comfortable enough for Chavez to forget it was there — which is what sold him on it in the first place. It worked with the radio in his pocket as well, linked via the wire-loop necklace through the same near-field technology used with surveillance earbuds. More and more tech was moving to cell phones, but the radios worked virtually anywhere and allowed him to talk to the entire team at once.
“We’ve been operating inside the nine-dash line most of the day. I’m seeing a few Chinese patrols on the radar, but they’re way off. Looks like one of our Navy ships is conducting a freedom of navigation cruise eleven miles east, not far from the Vanguard Bank. That should keep any Chinese patrols from pestering us. Pilot says we’re less than five minutes out, with open seas between us but for a couple of fishing boats.”
“No pressure,” Clark said. “But I’m surprised you’re still at it.”
