What do these bastards expect?
Chen fumed silently as he turned on his heel and headed for the conference room door. The refinery attack had happened less than four hours earlier. There wasn’t a security service on the planet that could have provided the answers his team did in that period of time.
Fortunately, the MSS had human and technical assets on the ground all over Africa.
Chen began running his extensive list of Angola assets through his mind as he crossed the threshold. By the time he stepped into the elevator, he had already exhausted it.
There was no question in his mind that Fan Min’s death and the refinery attack were connected; after all, it was Fan Min’s company that was building the refinery. More important, the two events combined sent a very powerful political message. To be certain, however, he had tasked his best operator to explore Fan Min’s private life to determine if the assassination was the result of a personal vendetta, which Chen deemed highly unlikely.
The chief problem Chen faced was that the NFLA was a new group, and until yesterday had committed no acts of lethal violence. There had been neither time nor opportunity to infiltrate the organization, let alone identify members, funding sources, and weapons suppliers.
The more immediate difficulty preventing him from identifying the killers was that all of his potential leads—the prostitute, the pimp, the truck driver, and, of course, Fan Min and the PLA security guards—were all dead.
Whoever staged the attack on the refinery and the assassination of Fan Min had been exceedingly thorough in their planning and execution. Every possible lead had been cut down or burned away. The NFLA must be very well organized and disciplined.
“Bullshit,” he said as the elevator doors slid open. It wasn’t possible. Most indigenous revolutionary movements were hardly more than criminal gangs coalesced around a political or religious ideology. First attempts at kinetic assaults by such groups were always problematic and faltering, at best. But the NFLA’s operational efficiencies suggested advanced tactical training and intelligence gathering, capacities far beyond an indigenous rebel gang.
Chen’s bodyguard-driver opened the rear door to the black Hongqi (Red Flag) H7 government limousine parked in the basement lot opposite the VIP elevator.
“My office,” Chen barked as he climbed in, his thoughts barely interrupted.
These sophisticated abilities could have been provided only by an advanced intelligence service—the Americans, the French, the British, the Israelis, the Russians—the usual suspects with the usual motives.
Who else? Perhaps the South Africans. They had invaded Angola during the civil war to protect their interests there. Highly unlikely, though. After the radical regime change in Johannesburg, their intelligence capacities had degraded enormously, especially of late.
The North Koreans? Always a pain in the ass, Chen thought, but hard to believe they’d range this far and deploy scarce resources just to annoy their Chinese older brothers with no discernible benefit to themselves.
Perhaps the Cuban DI—Dirección de Inteligencia—was behind this disaster. At one point, thirty-seven thousand Cuban soldiers were fighting in Angola, and ten thousand were killed during the civil war. China had since displaced Cuba as a force in Angola. Were the Cubans laying the groundwork for a resurgence in the region?
As the limo sped along Beijing Financial Street, Chen began to panic. The MSS certainly had sources within the Western intelligence service, and bribes could be offered to other amenable bureaucrats. But that would all take time, and time was the one commodity he was short of.
Chen lit a cigarette. He was missing something. What was it? He searched his mind.
A place? A name?
Yes. Both.
“CHIBI,” he said aloud.
“Sir?”
“Nothing. Drive.”
Chen pressed a button. The security glass rose, separating him from the driver’s compartment.
He cursed himself. How could he have forgotten? CHIBI was one of the strangest experiences of his professional life. His brain must have buried it like a traumatic memory.
As his Red Flag limo pulled up to the Stalinist marble edifice of the Ministry of State Security, Chen made a decision.
He would reach out to CHIBI one more time. It was fortunate the enigmatic source had left instructions for just such an occasion.
Chen would express his concern that the information provided previously was well appreciated but likely a fluke. In order to participate in the London auction, he would need another proof-of-concept demonstration of his own choosing—finding actionable intelligence on the Lobito assault. Five soldiers who led the attack would be easier to locate than an unknown number of invisible assassins who murdered Fan Min. Chen was certain that finding the NFLA attackers would lead to the assassins eventually.
It was a long shot. Perhaps CHIBI was no longer interested in his proposed quid pro quo. Perhaps he couldn’t acquire the intel needed. Perhaps CHIBI was, in fact, a digital honey trap.
But if CHIBI could help crack this case, it would save Chen’s career—and, more important, his life.