Fourth Conference Room Building
Formerly known as Yin’an
Northern Zhongnanhai complex
Beijing, China
0954 local time
Qin folded his hands behind him in case they might be shaking as he glared at the aide to the deputy minister of foreign affairs. If the goal over the next seventy-two hours was to draw as little attention to himself as possible, then what he was doing now was not the way to do it.
“This is highly irregular, Minister Qin,” the young man said, obviously annoyed. “You were not on the original guest list for the weekly meeting.”
“Are you suggesting that I, the minister of defense, need your permission to sit in on a weekly meeting with the lead diplomat of our most formidable adversary and largest trading partner?”
“No…no, of course not, sir…” the man stammered, looking around the room for anyone who might help him. “I’m only saying…”
“Hûyâi, it is such a pleasure to see you,” a familiar voice called out, and he looked over to see Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bai Ming angling toward him, the smile on Bai’s face discordant with the suspicious look in his eyes. Qin understood completely. It was not Qin himself that aroused suspicion, but rather the hidden “why” behind the reason he’d come to a meeting he did not regularly attend. After all, Bai certainly didn’t want to meet the same fate as his predecessor.
Qin shook the soft, moist hand of the smaller man in the expensive suit, who nodded dismissively to his aide.
“The pleasure is mine, Ming,” he said, his best disarming smile on his face. “I hope it is okay for me to attend. I am here of my own accord, I assure you.” He leaned in, proceeding in a conspiratorial whisper. “You were at the cabinet meetings yesterday and the day before, my friend. Our leader has given me a most dangerous and difficult task. I had hoped to sit in today and see if the U.S. ambassador might reveal something—anything—of value regarding the American naval posture ahead of our ‘exercise.’ ”
“Ah, of course,” Bai said, seeming relieved, but perhaps just playing along. “This is why it was wise to replace Minister Zhao with an experienced military officer. I said as much to—” He hesitated, and glanced around, as if uttering the name of his previous boss might bring the same fate down on his own head. “Well, to the committee, and also to the president. You are a shrewd one.”
“Thank you, Ming,” Qin said. “We serve the people. If it is quite all right, I may want to speak during your meeting? I had hoped to say a few things to see if I might get a rise out of the ambassador, perhaps trick him into revealing something.”
“We can play at what the American movies call ‘good cop, bad cop,’ if you like,” Bai said, relishing having an ally in the room, Qin thought. “But you should know that Ambassador Mitchell will likely not be here. We meet today with his aide, Mr. Scott Kincaid.”
“Even better,” Qin said. “His underling is probably more likely to give something away as I press him. He will be less experienced in the American techniques of deception and slipperiness.”
And far better for Qin, since Kincaid was likely CIA, if his friend Dong Jun’s assessment was correct.
“Yes, yes, I see,” Bai said, and gave him a conspiratorial wink, just as the door opened and the deputy to the ambassador, Scott Kincaid, entered the room with a woman in tow, both wearing gray business suits.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Kincaid,” Bai said, gesturing for the two to take a seat as he took his own seat at the head of the table, his young aide beside him. He also gave a nod to Qin, indicating he should take the seat beside Bai, to his right.
“Perhaps you have met Minister of National Defense Qin Hûyâi?”
“I have not,” Kincaid said, rising again.
Qin folded his arms across his chest to abort shaking hands, and simply made a gruff sighing sound.
Kincaid gave a tight-lipped smile and returned to his seat.
“We appreciate your willingness to continue these weekly meetings with us, Minister Bai,” Kincaid said, all smiles again. “It is of great value to both our nations that we continue a close working relationship.”
“Perhaps,” Bai said, sounding bored. “Minister Qin has a few things to say at the end, but why don’t we go through the agenda items Ambassador Mitchell sent over, shall we?”
Kincaid gave a pleasant nod, but his eyes ticked over to Qin. There was no fear or concern in the brief glance, but Qin definitely saw curiosity.
Dong Jun was right. I know the eyes of an American spy when I see one. Scott Kincaid is CIA, just as Jun said.
The two diplomats took the lead, working through the agenda, sharing already well-publicized talking points from their respective bosses in a boring sparring match over trade, intellectual property rights, foreign real estate investment, and oil trade with Russia—all things that, if Li had his way in two short weeks, would be completely and utterly meaningless.
While they yammered, Qin’s mind drifted back to the two-hour dinner he’d had with Dong Jun last night. Qin had let his intuition serve as his lodestar during their conversation. Despite their yearslong friendship, Qin had decided to err on the side of caution. Jun was a good man, and an even better friend, but he was a spymaster in the MSS. His loyalty would be—should be—to the CCP and President Li, no matter how strong his friendship and history with Qin. So, instead of confiding his true concerns about Operation Sea Serpent, Qin had taken a very different tack.
Swearing Jun to secrecy, Qin shared how President Li had approved the plan to convert the exercise into a real-world operation, code-named Sea Serpent, to “repatriate” Taiwan. Then, instead of voicing doubts over the plan and its repercussions, Qin feigned the opposite. He touted the plan as brilliant and timely, bragging it would be a swift and unprecedented success and that Taiwan would be conquered in a matter of hours under the operational plan he’d designed.
“Before the Americans even know what is happening, Taiwan will be a part of the CCP,” he boasted.
“But surely they will retaliate?” Jun asked, leaning in and speaking in a hushed voice on the terrace of their favorite steak house. “How can they not?”
Qin smiled and shook his head, then regurgitated President Li’s assumptions—assumptions he knew with all his heart to be folly.
“They won’t dare retaliate,” he said, sticking to the Li script, “as to attack us after our victory would be an attack on China itself, and an act of all-out war. They have no stomach for such a war after decades in the Middle East.”
“Taiwan is not my area of responsibility. I must confess, I’ve not heard anything regarding this operation. Which means the OPSEC surrounding the plan has been robust and effective. Reunification was a goal I believed would forever remain ten years in the future,” Jun said, and Qin could see both hope and fear in the other man’s eyes.
Qin seized the moment to exploit his friend for what he needed. Expressing deep concern about American intelligence assets getting wind of the plan in advance, which he told his friend would allow them to position their fleet in a way to make success very difficult and guarantee losses on both sides, he asked for his help in understanding the American intelligence machine operating inside China.
“It is weak and ineffective,” Jun bragged. “The purge a decade ago resulted in a decimation of American and other foreign intelligence operations inside China. Not only did we uncover the traitors within our ranks—all of whom were arrested and summarily executed—but we were able to unmask and destroy the American and British intelligence operations that were fed by them. We believe that intelligence operations between us and the West are now asymmetrical, practically a one-way street.”
“Surely the Americans still have intelligence operations within China. It would be naive to believe otherwise,” Qin pressed.
“The American diplomatic mission in Beijing is staffed with CIA personnel posing as FSO and State Department officials. As in their embassies throughout the world, they exploit the access that diplomacy provides—the same as we do. But we know who they are and where they travel. We know who they meet with and when. And, most importantly, we have completely disassembled their ability to interact with Chinese government and business officials without our knowledge.”
Qin smiled and toasted his classmate’s great success. Then he leaned in closer and, taking a conspiratorial tone, asked, “The ambassador—is he a spy?”
“No, but his deputy, Scott Kincaid, is a CIA operations officer.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” Qin said softly, “of a legendary double agent, thought to be a woman, that people call the Spider. She is said to have duped the Americans and been the mastermind of the purge…”
Avoiding the trap of potentially trusting the wrong agent was of key importance to Qin’s survival if his plan were to work. He needed to know which narrative about the Spider was truth and which was fiction—did she work for the Americans or was she a product of the MSS?
Dong Jun laughed at this. “One of the greatest operations of all time, and one for which I can boast—secretly to you, of course—to being the architect.”
“So the Spider is a fiction?” he asked.
“Better,” Jun said. “The Spider is real, but we created a narrative around her to make her ineffective. You see, the Spider is not an MSS agent, but rather she is a traitor and spy, run by the CIA, who uses old-school spycraft and stays completely off the grid, which made her impossible to catch. So, we created the legend that she was actually an MSS asset, used during the purge to unmask traitors and Western spy networks. We credited her for most of the arrests and subsequent executions. As a result, no would-be American collaborators will go near her now, fearing that she will betray them to the MSS.”
“Genius indeed,” Qin said.
Now Qin heard his name, which snapped him back to the present. He refocused his gaze from the middle distance to the American deputy chief of mission. “Excuse me?”
“Do you care to comment, Minister Qin?” Kincaid asked.
He stared at the man with what he hoped to be deadly serious eyes.
“I have no interest in these matters, Deputy Kincaid,” he said, waving a hand in the air as if shooing away an annoying gnat. “I have but one purpose here today, and that is to avoid missteps that could lead to war.”
Kincaid’s eyebrows shot up, and he glanced at the woman beside him, who had been silently taking notes as Kincaid and Bai Ming had sparred.
“Well, you certainly have my attention,” Kincaid said, folding his hands on the table in front of him.
Qin rose, standing in front of his chair to lord over the table in a position of dominance, only barely glancing at Kincaid as he spoke. He clasped his hands behind his back again, fearful that they might shake. But he knew his face and voice would betray nothing.
“We have notified all relevant nations of our scheduled Sea Serpent military exercise. The tensions between our naval fleets, especially in the South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan, have become untenable recently. The presence of American warships in Chinese territorial waters is both reckless and dangerous.” He felt the eyes of the CIA man on him, but still gave Kincaid only a glance as he spoke, staring out the window at the lake instead. “This exercise is vital to our national defense. In recognition of the hostility of the American fleet in the region of late, I feel a need to emphasize to you now how dangerous it would be to interfere in any way with Sea Serpent. American naval forces are prohibited from entering Chinese territorial water for forty-eight hours before to forty-eight hours after the completion of our exercise. Reckless interference with our training would reasonably be considered an act of war, especially should injuries occur as a result.”
He leaned in now, palms on the table, and glared at Deputy Scott Kincaid. To his credit, the American reacted with a patient smile.
“As I know you are aware, Minister Qin, your nation’s claims to territorial rights encompassing the South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan are disputed by many, including the United States. However,” he said, raising his hands with palms up in a gesture of deference, “we respect your need for military training and we agree it is best for all parties that our forces not come in close contact. We have made this same point through diplomatic channels frequently, as needed, when Chinese naval forces have interfered with our own naval exercises and training operations in international waters…”
“The CCP does not recognize the United States Navy’s right to conduct exercises near our territories in areas of vital strategic importance,” Qin said through a growl.
“I understand that,” Kincaid said with a gentle smile. “What I can assure you is that Ambassador Mitchell will most certainly pass on your concerns to President Ryan. The United States wishes only peace and prosperity for both our nations. I can assure you that we will never do anything to unnecessarily provoke conflict with China.”
Qin held the eyes of the American CIA operative, hoping that his own eyes now conveyed another, secret message along with his words.
“Mr. Kincaid, I will personally do anything it takes to avoid war between our two nations,” he said, then blinked, straightened up, and again put on the mask of a warrior. “But we will not tolerate interference.”
“I understand,” Kincaid said, and something in the other man’s eyes suggested perhaps he did.
“I must return to work,” Qin said, striding around the table, passing behind Bai so that the palm of his hand would be turned away from the acting minister of foreign affairs.
Qin stopped in front of Kincaid, who rose from his seat and extended his hand. Cupping a wafer-thin packet in his palm, Qin gripped the American’s hand and shook it. They locked gazes, and something flickered in the CIA man’s eyes as Qin made the transfer.
“I can assure you that we understand each other perfectly,” Kincaid said, dropping his hand to his side. He then disappeared the item with the fluid grace of a trained magician. “I appreciate your attending the meeting in person to share these sentiments.”
Qin turned to Bai, who smiled at him approvingly.
“Minister Bai, I trust you can wrap up these discussions without me. I think the Americans now understand our position,” Qin said in Mandarin.
“Thank you, Minister Qin,” Bai said, rising and giving him a slight bow.
Without another word, Qin turned and paced quickly out the door.
Striding down the hallway, it took all the self-control and discipline Qin had built over a lifetime of military service not to stop and lean against the wall with emotional exhaustion. There were cameras everywhere in this building. His handshake with Kincaid would most certainly have been recorded, but would the technicians viewing the footage notice the transfer? He did not think so. And why would they want to look in the first place? Who would suspect him, of all people? He loved China, the military, and his work. Everyone who knew him understood this.
His reputation was beyond reproach.
Which may well be the only thing that kept him alive in the coming days after the act of treason he had just committed.