Chapter 8

Mike was pleased to see that the website was still up and functional. There was a general announcement on the second page dealing with the current upheaval at the CIA. The first half of the message explained what was going on within the agency. The second half of the message was asking all those members of the website to remain in their positions and to keep as low of a profile as possible. Mike thought that keeping a low profile was good advice.

He noticed that there was a marker for changed information on the known double agents. The link was just begging him to follow it. Unable to resist, he clicked on the link. There was a similar marker beside Chang’s name. Mike smiled and, as he clicked the link, said, “Let’s see how your bosses reacted to the news.”

One of the areas that were highlighted as recently updated concerned Chang’s rank in the Chinese Ministry of State Security. Mike looked over it and saw that Chang had been promoted. It appeared that they approved of how Chang had handled the removal of two CIA agents. The agent responsible for the update was CIA009. Mike wondered if the man was going to stay with the agency.

There at the bottom of the page was a link to a transcript of a conversation between Chang and his Washington handler. Mike read the transcript with a smile. It looked to him like the Chinese were trying to figure out if the President was serious. Their advice to Chang was to lie low. He was a little disturbed to see his name in the report. It seemed that the Chinese were suggesting that he be maneuvered into submitting a poor analysis based on false data to see what would happen.

The agent responsible for that update was NSA004. He followed that link to see what recent updates NSA004 had made on the page. Looking over the list, it was obvious that the man was tracking the conversations held between double agents and their embassies. Following the link to the embassies, Mike found a list of known agent handlers. It was a much smaller list of individuals and showed the known agents for which each was responsible. He wasn’t surprised to find the names of several dozen university professors among the names on the list.

He returned back to the main page about Chang and followed the surveillance report on his trip to China. It was rather sketchy on details, but did include that he had spent most of his time with his wife and kids there. There was a mention of several meetings with one of the high level directors in the Chinese Ministry of State Security. There weren’t any reports of him meeting with any researchers in the high energy labs.

Armed with the new data, Mike updated his page on the Chinese high energy weapons program. The picture that emerged suggested a far broader and more successful program than presented in the official reports. He provided excerpts from Chang’s false report concerning the state of research in China. Those excerpts were copied to two places, his assessment of the energy program and Chang’s biography. He assumed that it would help CIA009 figure out what Chang was doing while he had been in China.

Finished for the evening, Mike logged out and went to the counter as if he was going to pay. It was all part of looking like a regular customer. The man, Joe Dinkins, looked at Mike and said, “John, I’ve got a package here for you.”

“Oh,” Mike said. The man behind the counter always called him John as a way of establishing ‘plausible deniability’ that he knew who Mike was.

Joe nodded his head and said, “It’s just a little piece of security hardware.”

Mike accepted the package and left. When he reached home, he went into the third bedroom that he was slowly turning into a study. After closing the door, he unwrapped the package. Inside were a pistol and a license to carry it. The federal carry permit was issued out of an unnamed government agency.

It was late one Saturday afternoon when Mike backed his car to the front door and parked it there. It didn’t matter to him that he had driven over the yard. It was just a patch of dirt now that the weeds had died off. His car was sagging under the weight of the groceries he was hauling. He had a year’s worth of food in the car!

After listening to the news the previous night, he and Karen had decided that it was time for them to prepare for the worst. Almost all of the terrorist detainees had been released from Guantánamo. More than two thousand terrorists had been set free overnight and some of them came to the United States to pursue unlawful detainment lawsuits. Mike was sure that they would create lots of chaos in the country before they were captured again.

While Mike carried a bag of groceries into the house Karen stood by the door of the third bedroom holding little Robert. The little baby was growing fast. She had a pensive look on her face. As he passed by, she asked, “Did you get enough for a year?”

“I think so, but you’ll need to check out what I got,” Mike said. He’d been to one of those discount warehouse places. The huge quantities that he had purchased did not look all that odd.

“Okay,” Karen said.

Mike entered the room. He had abandoned the idea of a home office and had turned the third bedroom into a storage room. Bare metal shelves lined the walls. The shelves wouldn’t remain bare for much longer. In the corner, he had a very large gun safe. It was already filled with enough weapons and ammunition to hold off a small attacking army. Karen had not been happy to see the gun safe arrive, but she would have been even less happy to see it leave.

As he put the groceries on the shelves, he glanced over at Karen and noticed her stiff stance. Thinking it was due to the situation that had made them decide to stock up on food, he said, “You look a little upset. We discussed this.”

Karen said, “I take it you didn’t listen to the news.”

“I can’t take the news anymore,” Mike said. It seemed to him that a day didn’t go by in which the situation didn’t get worse.

“There was a suicide bomber on the New York subway thirty minutes ago,” Karen said shaking her head. With a sigh, she said, “We pull out of Iraq because our soldiers are dying from IEDs. Now the bastards are doing it here.”

“We knew that was going to happen,” Mike said with more than a little anger in his voice.

“The President is a jerk,” Karen said focusing her blame on the most visible figurehead of the peace at any price movement.

Shaking his head, Mike said, “He’s not the only one. Congress has redefined the terrorists from being irregular armed combatants to criminals. They now fall under the jurisdiction of local police. The courts have embraced that definition.”

She knew that. Karen sighed and asked, “Can we immigrate to Australia?”

“I’m not giving up on this country, yet,” Mike said. He looked at her and said, “Semper Fi.”

Karen looked over at her husband and said, “I’m really scared about what’s going on in this country. I could use a little comforting. After we’ve finished bringing in the groceries, can you spend a little time with me?”

“You aren’t the only one who needs a little comforting darling. To tell the truth, I’m feeling a little shaky myself.”

Karen knew that he was saying that to make her feel better. He’d hold her all day and night if that was what it took to make her feel better and she knew that. She’d reward him with a little loving and she knew that he suspected that, but didn’t expect it. Smiling, she said, “Okay.”

Mike knocked on Dale’s office door. Hearing the invitation to enter, Mike walked into the office and closed the door behind him. With a sick expression on his face, he said, “We’ve lost track of the Iranian rail gun.”

The number of intelligence failures had been rising steadily. With so many agents having resigned, they couldn’t keep up with what enemies of the country were doing. Dale shook his head and asked, “Where do you think it went?”

“I can’t even guess. I still don’t know why they built it. Maybe they shipped it to Lebanon. Parts of Israel are within range of the weapon if it’s set up in Hezbollah controlled territory,” Mike answered making reference to the fact that Iran was a major supporter of Hezbollah.

“Is that what you think happened to it?” Dale asked.

“That’s just a wild assed guess,” Mike answered. A rail gun wouldn’t leave the tell-tale signature of a rocket. Hezbollah would be able to fire it at Israel without much risk of it being taken out in retaliation.

Nodding his head, Dale said, “Write up your best assessment of the situation and we’ll forward it to Israel. They should know about it if there’s even a chance of it showing up in their backyard.”

“Right,” Mike answered noticing that Dale didn’t suggest reporting it within the normal CIA channels.

Dale looked over at Mike with a smile and said, “Your report on the Chinese high energy weapons program was a masterpiece.”

“I should have won a Noble Prize for fiction,” Mike said with a snort of disgust.

Laughing at the expression on Mike’s face, Dale said, “There wasn’t any fiction there. It didn’t say anything despite weighing a ton. I think you invented new waffle words.”

“Thank you,” Mike said. He had fought with Chang over the lack of details within the report. All argument had ended when Mike had threatened to include Chang as a co-author to the report.

“Chang wasn’t too pleased with the report. He thought you should have been a little firmer in your assessment that the Chinese were behind us in most areas,” Dale said.

“I’m sure that he did,” Mike said thankful of the warning that the Chinese had planned to announce a major advance in their free- electron laser research right after his report was due. If he ever found out who CIA009 was, he was going to buy the man all the beer he could drink.

Dale nodded his head and said, “Be careful.”

The withdrawal from Iraq meant that forces were redistributed among the various military installations around the world. One consequence of that was that Colonel Robert Bowman was assigned to the Pentagon. Mike was looking forward to having his father in the area.

Being a good Marine Officer wife, Louise undertook the effort to relocate with the kind of ease that came from lots of experience. She flew out twice to the Washington, D.C. area to scout the housing market and purchased a house on her third visit. Mike had only been able to visit with her one evening of each of those trips. She finally flew in and spent the night at Mike’s home while waiting for her husband to join them. Louise was so enamored with the baby that Mike barely got a chance to talk with her.

Colonel Robert Bowman strode out to the luggage area and looked around with eyes that didn’t miss much. He spotted Mike and headed over to him knowing that Louise would be there waiting with him. Spotting Louise holding a baby in her hands, Robert winked at Mike and said, “My God woman, I’m gone a year and come back to find that you have a baby in your arms.”

Louise laughed at the joke and said, “That’s right. Say hello to your grandson, Robert Vincent Bowman.”

Robert looked at the baby and said, “Robert Bowman. Hmm, I rather like that name. It’s a good name for a Marine.”

Turning to face Mike, Robert said, “He’s a fine looking boy.”

“Thanks, Colonel,” Mike said with a grin.