The 22nd Secret Read online

  Tino studied the face of the man across the table. He recognized Henry’s cool sadistic nerve. This obviously wasn’t his first time in combat. Two things were very clear. First, what was said about Lo in the criminal underground - unwavering eyes and incredibly quick hands was not an exaggeration. Second, he could have easily killed all three of them.

  “They say you’re a killer,” Tino said. “A couple of my guys knew you when you were a kid here in Chinatown. Said you’re tough and fast, very fast. I saw that tonight. What is it that’s going to make us so much money?”

  “Tino, I need you. I need your connections.” Henry opened his briefcase and took out a blue file.

  Patty Lawrence, Howard Woolum, Henry Lo and Tom Walker met for dinner five months later. They were there to celebrate Patty’s 22nd birthday and finalize their plans to penetrate the Chinese nuclear missile arsenal.

  “Patty, I never realized what an impact you would make on Level 21 four years ago when I met you at your parent’s farm,” Howard said. “You are, by far, the most brilliant person I have ever had the privilege of working with. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “Howard, you know the way I’ve been treated by just about everyone the last four years. You saw the way I was treated today at my going away party. Hell, it was like I was suddenly everyone’s best friend. They liked me more when they knew I was leaving, going back to school.”

  “Patty, you can’t blame them. They were just jealous. They thought your money came from rich parents and they didn’t understand why you were my favorite. Your cover as a research assistant made them jealous. If they knew who you really were things would have been different.”

  “I’ve had enough of those petty little jealousies. I’m ready to move on. I’m here with my three best friends in the whole world.” Patty gave Henry’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “I’m ready to forget everyone at Los Alamos and talk about China.”

  “Patty,” Howard paused and Patty looked directly at him. “Tom, Hank and I have been thinking and well…why don’t you forget about going to China? Tom thinks it's way too dangerous. Your career in research is just starting. Who knows what discoveries await you?”

  “I’ve made up my mind. Everything I’ve accomplished is meaningless unless I go to China.”

  “We can find another way,” Tom suggested. “Something that doesn’t put your life on the line.”

  “What way, Tom? This is my computer program. This is my plan and this is my time to lead. Anybody at this table ready to challenge my leadership?” Patty paused. There were no challenges.

  “Okay, I expect you three to help me do what all of you know must be done. Hank what’s the latest from Tino?”

  “I met with him two days ago. Everything’s ready. You’ll meet Chen your first day in Weiker’s class. But Patty,” Henry looked directly into Patty’s eyes. “Tom’s right. This is too risky.”

  “Hank, you’re good at this kind of thing. What are my chances of getting in, installing the program and getting out?”

  Henry looked down. “Under normal circumstances, say someone like me,” he paused and softly continued. “Less than ten percent. You, I don’t know. There are too many variables. I’m not sure and I doubt you are either, just how much your special abilities can change that number. I’d like to think as high as fifty percent.”

  “I think that’s optimistic,” Tom added and continued soberly. “You may not have thought of this, but once you make contact with Chen you can’t go back. The government will consider you a traitor. The risk to the Level 21 security will be too high. They’ll want you dead. We’ll have a hell of a time explaining this if anything goes wrong.”

  Patty exhaled. “What about just getting the program installed?”

  “You may have a fifty percent chance at that,” Tom answered.

  Patty took another deep breath. “It’s worth the risk to me. If I have a chance to do this for mankind, even a slim one, it’s worth it to me. If I do have less than a fifty percent chance of surviving, I think you three should know there’s something about my program I haven’t told you.”

  The apartment complex in Falls Church, Virginia was a rambling maze of 45 identical buildings, five swimming pools, three tennis courts, a gym and a spa. Children played, parents went to work, and families gathered by the pool. It was a completely typical apartment complex except for Building 34. Most of the children played while their parents went off to work. But there were a few exceptions who, on regular schedules, walked downstairs to the basement parking garage as if going to work. Instead, they opened a door marked High Voltage with a key and descended a stairway to a second basement that no other building had. None of the apartment complex employees could have known that this was the Level 21 satellite surveillance center. It was manned 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Each of the three main consoles had one large monitor and a bank of smaller monitors with a computer control panel. The arrangement was similar to a control room at a television station. The operator sat in a pilot’s chair in front of the console and scanned the monitors for any unusual activity. If something unusual was spotted, the operator could display the image on the large monitor. One of the smaller monitors displayed an aerial view of a potato farm in Idaho. The console operators did not know the significance of any of the locations they monitored. They simply followed orders and reported directly to the Director of the CIA.

  One of those orders was to switch to high alert when a certain attractive blond visited the farm in Idaho. In this case, they handed the image off to one of the single monitor stations for constant monitoring. Agents regularly drove the roads around the farm, never more than a few minutes away. They maintained constant radio and satellite contact. Nothing noteworthy ever happened at the farm.

  The operator noted the car pulling into the farm and punched the button to bring the farm image to the main monitor. When the car stopped and a man got out, the operator clicked on the car to zoom in. He clicked on the license plate to zoom in further. Another click and registration, and a complete dossier of the driver appeared on the screen. The car was registered to a Ron Mack, a heavy equipment salesman. The operator entered the information into his keyboard console to log the event. He then clicked to restore the original image. He figured the farmer must be getting a new tractor. Nothing significant ever happened at the farm.

  Roland Koller heard the car pulling up the gravel driveway and knew it was something suspicious. He was already standing by the front door when he heard the knock.

  “Yes, may I help you?”

  “My name’s Tom Walker.” He showed Roland his CIA identification. “I have a message from your daughter. May I come in?”

  “Yes, please do. Is there something wrong? She’s okay, isn’t she?” Roland turned and hollered upstairs. “Hilda, there’s a man here from the CIA about Pam.”

  Tom watched as Hilda shuffled downstairs. “What happened? Is she okay?”

  Roland turned around to face Tom. “She was just here for a week’s vacation. She didn’t mention someone from the CIA would be calling.”

  “Your daughter’s fine, Mrs. Koller, she sent me here. She made you a videotape that I think you should watch right away. Then I’ll try to explain what I can. She told me you have a VCR, but if not I brought a portable.”

  “Yes, it’s over there. Roland pointed toward the television. Tom inserted the tape while the Kollers sat down on the sofa. Roland grabbed the remote and turned on the television.

  “I’ll wait outside on the porch. Let me know when the tape is over.” Walker stepped through the front door to the porch. After a few moments Pam’s image appeared on the screen. She smiled as she spoke. Hilda sat down next to Roland and held his hand.

  “Hi, Mom and Dad. First of all, I’m okay. Please, trust me. Everything’s going to be fine.” She was obviously trying to make her voice sound upbeat. “The man who brought you this tape, Tom Walker, I know him very well. You can trust him. He’s Hank�
��s boss. Whatever you do, follow his instructions exactly. This is very important. Do whatever he tells you.” Pam’s face turned serious. “There’s been a little problem here at Los Alamos. Well, actually a big problem, a security leak. Mr. Walker thinks my cover’s been penetrated. The bad people that we sometimes talked about may know who I am. That means they could find out who you are and try to get to me through you. Don’t be scared. I’m perfectly safe where I am and believe me, if Tom’s there with you, you’re more than safe.” Pam’s face turned sad. “I won’t be able to visit you, or you me, for six months maybe a year. We won’t even be able to talk on the phone.”

  Hilda grabbed for a Kleenex and began crying. Roland rubbed her forearm to soothe her.

  “Maybe longer, I’m not sure how long. Tom will stay in touch with you so you know I’m okay. You’ll have to leave the farm. There’s no way you can be safe there.” Roland put his arm around his wife, who watched her daughter through her tears. Pam’s smile returned. She knew her mother would be crying by now and her father would be in shock at the idea of leaving his farm.

  “I bought us the most wonderful house right on the beach in Malibu,” she said. “I had it fully furnished and I have a brand new Mercedes there waiting for you. I even got both of you some new clothes. Money is no problem. Just talk with Tom. He has everything arranged.”

  Pam smiled but her parents could see the hurt in her eyes. These were not easy things for Pam to ask of her parents. “You have to leave today with Mr. Walker. Don’t take anything. Don’t worry about the farm, Dad, or all your precious things, Mom. Tom has arranged for a nice couple, about your ages, to watch everything until this is all over with. They’re with the CIA. Trust me; nothing will happen to any of our things.”

  Pam took a deep breath and held back her tears.

  “Tom will handle all the details. Be sure and do exactly as he tells you. Besides Tom there will be only one other person you can trust. Her name is Maria Garcia. She’ll be your maid at the house in Malibu. She’s with the CIA and is a trained bodyguard. I’ve met her. She’s very nice and makes wonderful Tex-Mex. Trust no one else, not even Hank or Howard.”

  Tears began to roll down Pam’s cheeks. They led Hilda to cry with renewed vigor, and a lone tear fell down Roland’s cheek.

  “If my work were not so vitally important to the country, I would not ask you to make these sacrifices. I would just quit and come home and stay with you two forever. God, I wish I could, but there are a lot of people counting on what I do for the next year. So I really need you two to support me. I won’t be able to go on if I don’t know you two are safe. If Tom tells me you haven’t moved to Malibu, then I’ll quit and everything a lot of people have worked a long time for will be lost, and then the government won’t protect me anymore and I won’t be able to go home ever. It would be too dangerous for all of us. Please, I beg you do what Tom tells you. Do it now. Go with him. Do exactly as he says. I’ll try to send you a tape like this every once in a while so you’ll know I’m okay. I love you both very much. I’m sorry this had to happen.”

  Pam’s image was replaced with television snow. The Kollers sat there for a few minutes in shock. Finally, Hilda pulled herself together enough to speak.

  “What are we going to do, Rol?”

  “Do we have a choice? If we don’t go with this Mr. Walker, Pam will never be able to see us again. She’ll be a fugitive, hiding from everyone because we wouldn’t do this. I’ll get Mr. Walker.”

  Roland shut off the television got up and opened the front door to let Tom in. Tom walked over to the video recorder and ejected the tape. He assumed from the faces of the two people sitting on the couch in front of him the tape had played properly. “Do you understand what you have to do?”

  The Kollers nodded in unison.

  “Pam told you to do exactly what I tell you. You understand this and agree to it?”

  “Yes, we agree,” Roland answered.

  “I know this must be very hard for you. I’m sorry. I want you to get up and walk out of here with me now. Get in my car. I’ll take you to a motel by the airport. You’ll put on new clothes and then you’ll board a private jet. A limo will take you to your new home. Maria is waiting for you there.”

  “Just leave now? I can’t even take a few things with me?” Hilda asked.

  “No. When we walk out of here they’ll be watching. It can’t appear as though you’re leaving for good.”

  “Watching how? From where?” Roland asked.

  “Clear day like this. Satellites work real good. Let’s go. We’ll talk in the car.”

  The console operator studied the satellite view of the newest addition to the watch list, a beach house in Malibu. He also had on the main screen the sight profile. An agent was already at the location and the two people she would be protecting would arrive that day by limo. He noticed three people walking down the stairs of the farmhouse and quickly changed it to his primary monitor. He saw the salesman and the two occupants of the house get in the car and drive off.

  He dialed the Yellow Pages listing for the farm equipment dealers in nearby towns. Ron Mack worked at one of them. He noted this in his log and switched back to studying the Malibu profile.

  Three hours later the salesman’s car returned. The operator dialed up the farmhouse on the main viewer. The car stopped and the three people he saw get in earlier got out. The salesman shook hands with the man and woman, got back in his car, and drove off. The regular occupants of the house watched as he drove away. He noted this in the log and switched to the Malibu site just as a limo pulled up. The driver opened the door and two people got out. The operator zoomed in to get a closer look. The man was dressed in a dark suit and the woman in an attractive suit. He thought the faces looked familiar and logged their arrival. A week later, a new tractor was delivered to the farm. The operator on duty logged this in dutifully. Nothing significant ever happened at the farm.

  The Kollers called their friends from the Malibu house and wrote letters explaining distant cousins from Germany had bought the farm and Roland and Hilda were moving to England to be close to Pam, who had just received a promotion and transfer. Several visits back to their friends in Idaho made everything seem plausible. The distant cousins were not really related. Tom Walker paid the two Koller stand-ins with department funds. Two lifelong members of the now defunct East German resistance had their dreams of living in the United States come true.

  Henry and Tino met for dinner in the same private dining room once a month for the first six months. Tonight there was one more guest. Chen Wen Bin was a citizen of the People’s Republic of China. He was a handsome, well built, brilliant young man. His family was highly placed within the Chinese Communist Party. He had considerable experience in China with the computer missile technology stolen from the United States, and was considered one of the future scientific leaders of China. Chen had come to San Francisco at the request of Tino under the guise of finishing his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. Their meeting began after the three men ate and the servers cleared the table, leaving the room and shutting the door behind them.

  “Mr. Lo here is in special security at Los Alamos,” Tino began. “He contacted me six months ago to see if I could arrange a meeting with you. He says you are an expert on computer missile technology. I assume that’s right?”

  “I know as much about this as anyone in my country,” Chen replied. “I’ve worked on all the technologies we obtained from you Americans. I guess I’m an expert.”

  “No accent,” Henry noted.

  “Excellent English and I have him enrolled at Berkeley, in Dr. Weiker’s class just like you told me,” Tino said.

  Henry looked at Tino. “Perfect, what do you think?”

  “My Chinese associates tell me we can trust him. As long as it benefits his country, he’ll do anything we need him to. He knows how China obtained our technology and is familiar with it. I think he’s exactly what we need.”

 
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear.” Henry looked straight at Chen. “Without the girl you have nothing. Don’t be so foolish as to think you got any of this figured out, cause you don’t. Trust me. What I can get you, or keep you from getting is this.” Henry handed Chen a photo of Pamela Koller from her file at Los Alamos.

  “Name’s Patty Lawrence, beautiful isn’t she?”

  Chen nodded.

  “And brilliant, she’s our number one asset. That girl figured out what no one else could. She knows how to control the virus we have in all the technology you stole from us.”

  “What?” Chen looked up from the photo. “What virus? There’s no virus in our systems? What do you take us for, idiots? You think we haven’t figured out everything we got from you. You think we would just overlook something like that, or do you think you’re so smart you could pull that over on us? If that’s it, whatever deal you’re hoping to make is off. I can guarantee you that.”

  Henry’s eyes focused on Chen’s, sending a chill up his back. “That’s exactly what we did. Look, punk. You want us to make you the most important scientist in your country? You want to learn something they don’t even know about at Berkeley, let alone teach? You want to try and meet that girl? Take her back to China with you. Fuck her brains out. You want to be a hero of your people? Or you want me to blow your ass away right now?”

  Henry smiled with his steel-eyed stare. Chen squirmed in his seat.

  “Don’t look under the table, bud. I got my nine-millimeter pointed right at your balls. You decide: hero with that girl as your plaything, or dead? Either you say yes, or I don’t let you walk away knowing even this much. When you walked in here you were already dead or the most brilliant Chinese of the century. And don’t think you can just say okay then walk out of here and forget us. Take a look at this.”

  Henry picked up another photo with his left hand and handed it to Chen. He kept his right under the table. It was a photo of the Chen family home taken from a satellite. “I got friends in China would love to meet your mother. Hell, your father too. Tell him about me, Tino.”