The 22nd Secret Page 4

  Mafia Boss Believed Lost in Plane Crash

  AP– Anchorage. A private plane piloted by Leonard “Lucky” Casino and reported to also have Mafia boss Anthony “Tino” Cassioppi and one other person on board is reported down in the Alaskan wilderness. Two are known dead, and the third is reported as missing. The single engine Cessna was rented yesterday morning by Casino, known to pilot for high Mafia figures. It disappeared one half-hour after takeoff. It was reported down two hundred miles off course near Bear Breath, Alaska by Jim Mitchell and Sheriff Bill Keller, both residents of this remote part of Alaska. FAA officials say the worst storm in years is preventing any attempt to reach the downed plane.

  “Thanks Betty. You’re the best.” Tom reviewing the files and reports Betty compiled and put them in his attaché case.

  “I know.” She lay on the couch, resting her head on a throw pillow. Her ankles crisscrossed on the other end of the couch.

  The new information included the original FAA report, weather reports, the latest satellite photos of the Chinese research vessel taken before the storm, and military files on James Mitchell and William Keller, in addition to the AP report. Betty included several color printouts off the Internet, of Jim Mitchell’s Lodge and fishing tour business, this was her best work.

  “I’m going to shower and shave,” Tom said, as he went into his private bathroom and Betty dozed on the couch. A warm shower gave him time to think and prepare for his meeting with the Director of the CIA.

  Betty was sitting at her desk when Tom emerged from the bathroom showered, shaved, and dressed in a clean shirt, tie and pressed suit. He sat down in the chair next to Betty’s desk. The shower had refreshed him and he had a new list of items he wanted Betty to gather.

  “Johnson’s already called,” she said, handing him his attaché case. “Said he and Director Stanley are waiting for you in his office.”

  “The director of the FBI too? Well, I guess this is more serious than I thought,” Tom said sarcastically.

  “Boss, I’m sorry. What a mess.”

  “I want you to get me the phone number and address of the FBI office in Anchorage and the name of the man in charge. Find out what kind of Army Special Forces are close to the crash site, specially trained for winter conditions. There’s got to be something like that up there. Find out how I can get a hold of Mitchell and Keller. Get me the latest on the Chinese research vessel. It was to sail this morning. Find out if it did. Then I want you to take the rest of the day off. Go home and get some rest.”

  Betty normally would jump at the chance to spend the day with her husband. “Oh boss I can’t. I can’t go home knowing Patty may be–”

  “Look, Mitchell said in the FAA report he thought the survivor was a woman. Let’s hope he’s right. After the meeting I’ll need some time to think. If I need you all I have to do is call.” Tom took his assistant‘s hand tenderly in his. She was his friend as much as anything. “Go home, Betty. Relax. Get your mind off of Patty. Get some rest. If I need you, it’ll probably be tonight.”

  “Okay, boss. I’ll leave the info you asked for in the safe.”

  Tom stood and picked up the attaché case and exited the office as Betty began working.

  “Morning, Jan,” Walker said as he entered the receptionist area of Director Roger Johnson’s office suite. It was larger and more intricately furnished than Tom’s and Betty’s.

  “Good morning, Mr. Walker. Director Johnson is waiting for you in his office. Would you care for some coffee?”

  “Thanks, that’ll be great,” Tom said as he opened the door to the office of the Director of the CIA.

  “Sit down, Tom.” Johnson gestured toward the large leather guest chair next to the one FBI Director Gregory Stanley was seated in. “I’ve invited Greg to join us. I think he’ll be interested in what you have. You look a little tired. Long night?”

  “Yes sir, all night.” Jan slipped into the office with his coffee and he took a cautious sip.

  “You said you had something on Patty Lawrence and Henry Lo?”

  “Yes, sir.” Tom set the attaché case on his lap, opened it, and pulled out a typed transcript. He handed it to Johnson. “I’m sorry, Director Stanley. I didn’t know you were going to be here. I’ll have a copy made for you after the meeting.”

  Johnson handed it back to Tom. “You can give us copies of everything later. Just tell us about Patty Lawrence.” Johnson looked at Stanley as if they knew something that Tom didn’t about the young Los Alamos intern, Patty Lawrence.

  Walker held up the transcript and returned it to his attaché case and set it next to him on the floor.

  “This is a transcript of a telephone conversation I recorded yesterday afternoon, just before I called you, with a young man named Kent Bradley. He’s a political science major at Berkeley. He earned some extra money working for Henry Lo. Lo assigned him to shadow a twenty-two year old computer research intern named Patty Lawrence who had returned to school at Berkeley after working at Los Alamos for several years. It wasn’t a very difficult assignment – just casually observe her on campus, make sure she didn’t get in trouble, and report occasionally to Lo. I have the Los Alamos file on Patty Lawrence if you want to look at it.” Tom stopped when he noticed concerned eye contact between Johnson and Stanley. “Is there something I’m missing, sir? Are you following this so far?”

  “Just get on with it, Tom.”

  “The file on Lawrence is pretty standard. Apparently, a bright young lady, she worked directly with Dr. Woolum and wasn’t very popular with the other interns in the computer research department. The first day of the semester, Bradley observed her talking with an Asian man on several occasions. In itself not such an unusual event but Bradley reported this to Lo anyway, who told him not to worry about it. He continued to report the growing relationship between Lawrence and the young man, who Bradley found out, was named Benjamin Chen. All this would have gone unnoticed except around the end of October, Lo told Bradley he wasn’t needed any longer and to stop observing and reporting on Lawrence. We need to keep an eye on this kid, Bradley. He smelled a rat and he dug one up. He knew a girl who worked in the registrar’s office. He got her to look up Chen’s transcripts and registration. Turned out he’s a Chinese national working on his Ph.D. in computer science. His real name is Chen Wen Bin.”

  Tom stopped and sipped his coffee. He clearly saw the growing panic on the faces of Johnson and Stanley who glanced sidelong at each other.

  “Sir, is there something I should know here? You and Director Stanley seem to be taking the possible defection of a relatively meaningless intern very seriously. Actually, I’m more concerned about Lo. His position as security chief at the Los Alamos nuclear computer research center seems to me to be the big problem here. Not this girl and her Chinese lover.”

  “Fuck Lo. What else you got on Patty Lawrence?”

  “One more thing on Lo, Bradley was suspicious of Chen and followed him to Chinatown about ten days ago. He observed him entering a restaurant about the same time as Anthony Cassioppi. He’s in charge of–”

  “We know who he is. Damn it, man. What about Lawrence?”

  “Yes, sir. Just one more thing. A few minutes later Henry Lo entered that same restaurant.” Tom stopped, knowing the two men listening to his report would expect him to think it very significant that the man in charge of security at the Los Alamos Computer Research Center had met with a Chinese national and the mafia boss with the best Chinese connections on the west coast.

  Stanley and Johnson stared at Tom and then glanced at each other with stunned expressions. “I told you forget Lo,” Johnson said. “He’s obviously a damn traitor. What else you got on Patty Lawrence?”

  “Ah, yes sir.” Walker stammered, playing his fake ignorance to Johnson and Stanley’s concern for all it was worth. “Betty checked the airline passenger manifests of outgoing flights from San Francisco, and two days ago the whole damn bunch flew to Anchorage under false identities.”

&
nbsp; “Anchorage?” Johnson looked at Stanley and rolled his eyes while Stanley dropped his face into his hands and shook his head.

  “That’s not all.” Tom reached for his attaché case. He opened it and handed a piece of paper to Johnson. “This AP report is self-explanatory. It wasn’t released in time for the east coast, but the west coast papers will have it this morning. There’s a chance that third missing person is Patty Lawrence, just a chance. That plane went down heading straight for a Chinese research vessel anchored off the coast of Kenai Peninsula.” Johnson’s eyes devoured the report. When he was finished, he lowered his head and sighed. He handed it to Stanley.

  “Except for the plane ticket to Anchorage, Lo hasn’t been seen or heard from since November 4th. The Chinese research vessels permit runs out today. They were scheduled to leave American waters this morning. Betty’s checking to see if they did.”

  Stanley handed the AP report back to Tom who put it back in the attaché case. Awkward silence filled the room as Stanley exhaled deeply.

  “Seems like a lot of trouble to get your college girlfriend out of the country.”

  Johnson looked up at Stanley, who seemed to know what was coming next. He glanced at Tom, and spoke slowly and softly. “Tom, would you excuse Greg and me for a moment. We would like to talk in private.”

  “Sure.” Tom set his attaché case down next to his chair and stood. “I need a break anyway. The coffee’s getting to me.”

  Tom stood outside the door and flirted with Jan; a woman hired for her voice and looks more than her office skills. Several minutes passed before Johnson interrupted over the intercom.

  “Jan, ask Walker to step back in here please.” She smiled at Tom and turned to her laptop. Tom stepped back through Johnson’s office door. He sat down and noticed that Stanley had begun perspiring through his shirt.

  “Tom, I just checked with the President. He agrees with Greg and me. We need to get on this right away.”

  “I think so too. We have to locate Lo before he can do any more damage. He’s probably been the source of the leaks out of Los Alamos for years.” Tom sat up straight on the end of his chair.

  “I don’t think he was, Tom.” Johnson continued as Tom relaxed back into his chair. “But you have my permission to shoot the son of a bitch when you find him. He didn’t slip our nuclear computer secrets to the Chinese. I did.”

  “What?” Tom stood up out of his chair.

  “Sit down, Tom,” Johnson said softly. “I did and so did my predecessors going back to the Bush administration.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.” Skillfully hiding his prior knowledge of the Level 21 technology and its key players he slumped back down in his chair.

  “I know you’ve done a hell of a job trying to contain the Chinese leaks and helping with damage control. It’s been great work. The President really appreciates it.”

  Johnson paused, lost in thought. He looked at Stanley and then into his desk. He picked up a pen and threw it down in disgust. “Pisses me off just thinking about it. Just when it looked like we were going to pull off the greatest deception in espionage history. The Chinese get to a couple of our people.”

  “Our people, you mean Henry Lo.”

  “Oh yes, I mean Lo. But Patty Lawrence, that’s our real problem. What did that file you have on Lawrence tell you about her?”

  “Not much. She worked with Dr. Woolum on some of his top secret programs but didn’t really know much. Most of her co-workers figured Woolum kept her around because he was sleeping with her. Definitely nothing in her file could explain why the Chinese would go to such lengths to get her. If that’s what’s going on.”

  “Hold on right there.” Johnson picked up a thick blue file and threw it on the desk in front of Tom. He picked it up, recognizing the Level 21 security clearance file and the name on it. He opened it and looked at the pictures on the first few pages. “What’s Level 21 Technologies?”

  “Tom there’s a lot more to this,” Johnson said. “First, I want you to understand there’s no way to reward you for what you’ve done for your country the past fifteen years. Your contribution has been invaluable. In fact, to a large extent what I’m about to tell you could not have been done without your work. This is extremely classified. No one knows about this except the presidents and the CIA and FBI directors going back to Reagan, and a handful of other people.” Johnson paused for a moment until Tom looked up from the file.

  “We allowed the Chinese to penetrate our security.” Johnson paused again. “We wanted them to get a hold of our missile and nuclear warhead technologies.”

  Tom threw the file onto Johnson’s desk. He had to grab it or it would have slid into his lap. Tom rose and spoke in anger. This was the moment he rehearsed, staring in the mirror until he got it right. He needed to nail the anger of a man betrayed, even though betrayal was far from what he felt.

  “You mean to tell me I’ve been trying to shut them down while you’re letting them have whatever the fuck they want? Helping them, right? Fuck you. Fuck this whole goddamn fucking crazy business.” Tom stormed over to the window and stared out at the rolling green hills.

  “That went well.” Stanley tried to ease the tension.

  “Why? Just tell me why. Tell me why I shouldn’t arrest the two of you for treason?” Tom slowly regained his composure, while looking out of the window.

  “If it wasn’t for your efforts and those of others, we could have never pulled off the deception. Please, sit down I can explain.” Johnson spoke soothingly and Tom slowly walked back to his chair and sat down.

  “When Reagan and his people began looking at the numbers on the Strategic Defense Initiative, it became clear the costs were way too high to justify even building prototype systems. You remember some of this. You were stationed at Los Alamos at the time. Plus, no one could even begin to guarantee anything would work. It was clear SDI was a political hit but as a practical weapons system it was a bomb. Pun intended. What you don’t know and neither do the Chinese or very many other people. A young computer programmer, Howard Woolum, you know Howard,” Tom nodded. “While working on SDI, Woolum proposed a theoretical new technology. It’s called Level 21 Technology, short for 21st century technology. Now, Tom you know I know nothing about computers. Hell, I have trouble using the damn speakerphone here on my desk. So I can’t tell you how any of this works. From what I’ve been told you have to be a damn genius to even understand the concept, but I’m going to try to explain it to you anyway.

  For years now we’ve been building microchips, memory and all that kind of stuff with the ability to use this technology. It’s in your PC, your cellphone, your microwave, everywhere. Even the stuff the Japs and Koreans make. Tom, it’s in the stuff the Chinese stole, bought, or just plain copied from us. Don’t ask me how, but it’s not detectable, at least with the technology out there today. Build anything to run computer technology, as we know it, it’ll support Level 21. Now here’s the beauty of this stuff.”

  Johnson paused leaned forward in his chair and spoke softly. “It’s virtually invisible, undetectable. I mean to tell you that Level 21 is the ultimate computer virus. It uses micro-fractions of processor and storage space compared to traditional technologies. We embedded the basic systems in everything. The microprocessor in your microwave would commit mental suicide if the Level 21 programming in it thought you were launching a nuclear warhead.” Johnson leaned back in his chair. “Now it’s not as simple as blowing up your microwave. You know, missiles have telemetry all those kind of things. Basically, we can communicate with the Level 21 programs in most of their weapons, at least the new stuff they got from us. SDI was a flop but Level 21 was a big, massive success. All we needed to do was let them get their hands on our hardware and software and we achieved all the objectives of the original SDI program at a fraction of the cost. And the damn Chinese are selling the technology to everyone else, thank you very much.”

  ”That’s incredible. Are you sure about
this? I can’t believe anything like this really exists.”

  “Believe it, Tom. If you want to ask the President I’ll get him on the phone.”

  “No, that’s okay. I believe you but this is so fantastic. You say the Chinese don’t know anything about this.”

  “Not a clue. At least as far as we knew until this Patty Lawrence thing came up. The Chinese needed to think they were really pulling one over on us. That’s why your work for the past fifteen years was so critical to the success of the deception.”

  “Wen Ho Lee have anything to do with this?” Tom thought the question added to his feigned ignorance of the Level 21 technology.

  “Hell, yes. He supplied most of the computer code. We couldn’t just come out and tell him how, but he knew he was helping to defend Taiwan from the Chinese nuclear threat. The man’s a damn hero. In exchange for his work, we assured the Taiwanese government they didn't need to fear the Chinese missile arsenal, including the neutron bomb. They've been flipping the Red Chinese off ever since. Damn shame the Energy Department penetrated his cover. It was all over before the media got hold of the story anyway. But when Congress started asking questions, like why’d Clinton approve the sale of super computers to the Chinese, we had to quiet things down fast. Got Wen out of the country fast and downplayed the whole thing to the media. You were in on the Wen investigation.”

  “I always wondered why he got off without even being charged with mishandling classified information.” Tom thought for a moment about how Henry was always grateful he didn’t have to make sure Wen would not be available for Congress to question. Henry liked Lee.

  “What do Patty Lawrence and Henry Lo have to do with any of this?”

  “Well, this is really the bad part. Even if the Chinese were experts in Level 21 technologies, they would have difficulty finding and disabling what we planted. It’s just the way this stuff is. Hell, it’s damn near invisible even if you know what you’re looking for. We knew this and when the Chinese started biting, well, we started worrying about them figuring it out and using it against us. So, Bush ordered research to determine if there was a way to defeat Level 21. No one could figure it out. Four years ago, this Patty Lawrence came to work full-time for us on that project. This file,” Johnson said, tapping the blue file sitting on his desk with his finger, “will tell you she’s a super genius, with an immeasurable IQ. She figured it out a year ago and now she’s the guru on this new detection and disabling stuff. Really, she’s the one person in the whole world who has a handle on how to break Level 21. She probably took some computer files with her, but she’s the real asset. The Chinese get her and the tables turn. They got a pipeline right into everything we got.”