Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

“Right.”

Mary Pat added, “And someone outside of North Korea is already paying them for the right to extract minerals there. A lot of money. These hard currency payments are being converted into an expansion of North Korea’s missile program. The rocket tubes captured off the coast of North Korea last week were purchased with this money, and we assume there is a lot more money, and a lot more proliferation, going on out there that we don’t know about.”

Calhoun said, “You see why this Chongju mine represents a clear and present danger to the United States, don’t you?”

Adam’s answer was barely audible. He was still in awe. “I get it,” he said. “North Korea with hard currency is a bad thing.”

Mary Pat nodded and said, “Now. Back to you. If you accept this operation, you need to understand something. This is not going to be a career maker for you, simply because you don’t need it. What you did in HK last year was more than enough to make your career. Your trip to North Korea is going to be one hundred percent risk for not much reward.”

Adam shrugged. “Maybe everybody says this, Director Foley, but I’m not looking for advancement. I’m looking for a challenge.”

She eyed him for a moment. Then looked away. “My husband and I loved what we did. There are a thousand frustrations and a million levels of bullshit with this job, but at its core, it can be one hell of a thrill, can’t it?”

Adam grinned. “Nothing like it.”

Calhoun nodded silently.

Mary Pat said, “We think our plan to get you in, established, and reporting back is solid. I just need to know if you will volunteer to go. So?”

Adam didn’t hesitate. “So . . . let’s do this.”

Mary Pat said, “Good. But remember, they don’t call it gangster mining without reason. You will be in danger from the people you are around the moment you get off the airplane in Shanghai.”

“I understand.”

“Time is critical, so we’ll need to get you up to speed very quickly. After a few days here you will go to California to learn the skills you need to backstop your legend. You have today to rest up and we’ll start tomorrow prepping you.”

The adrenaline coursing through Adam Yao dictated the next words out of his mouth. “I can start right now.”

Mary Pat shook her head. “Nope. Your national intelligence director is directing you to a hotel to sleep and take a shower. You’ll thank me in the morning. We’ll have someone drive you and then bring you some food, toiletries, and a change of gear. Tomorrow morning CIA will pick you up and begin a quick workup of your legend before you’re off to California.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

27

By the time Ryan, Caruso, and Biery returned to Alexandria, Virginia, from their mission in the Czech Republic, the rest of the Campus operational staff had relocated to New York City to begin looking into the operation of Duke Sharps.

Dom and Jack would have loved to have joined their cohorts in Manhattan, not just so they could get to the bottom of the operation that had nearly cost them their lives, but also to avoid going back into their office and facing Gerry Hendley.

They had briefed Gerry over the sat phone during the long flight back to the States, and to say he was displeased was an understatement. Gerry wasn’t a field operative himself, so normally he demurred and left the “hot wash” aspects of the after-action reports to John Clark, but when he learned IT director Gavin Biery had been given an overwatch role during a covert breach, and Biery’s failure to warn the team about an approaching threat had resulted in the near death of two of his operators, the death of the target, and the deaths of somewhere to the tune of a half-dozen North Korean aggressors, all in the middle of a major European city, Gerry had told his two operators that as soon as their plane landed they needed to get themselves down from Baltimore and into Hendley Associates, and by then they better have some sort of an explanation.

Dom didn’t feel like he and Jack were at fault. As far as he was concerned Gavin was the one who screwed up, and Gavin should have taken most of the heat that was now focused on him and his cousin. But Jack understood Gavin couldn’t be blamed for not being a trained field operative. Just as Dom wouldn’t get grief from Hendley for failing to hack into an opposition computer server, Biery got a pass for his inability to execute his forced role in a covert entry.

But Gavin had not excused himself, far from it. He was nearly beside himself with shame for his mistake. By the end of the flight Dom had gotten to the point where he was no longer furious with the IT director, and Jack had told Gavin all along that the blame lay at his own feet, not Gavin’s, but the big man remained inconsolable.

This morning, while Dom and Jack were in Gerry’s office trying to explain what the hell had happened in Prague, Gavin sat sullenly at his desk, though he was working. He’d taken Karel Skála’s laptop, retrieved in Prague by Dom and Jack, and he did a deep search of deleted files on the hard drive. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for: five images sent to Skála three weeks earlier, just one week before Colin Hazelton died in Vietnam. There was no question that these were the five pictures used for the documents; they were typical passport pictures of four men and one woman, and they’d arrived at the right time. So Gavin uploaded the images into his facial-recognition application, and now the software ran on the machine in front of him.

While Gavin sat and sulked, the images were in the process of being measured hundreds of ways, from the width, height, depth, and shape of the periocular region of the face to the precise spatial relationship between the nose and the upper lip. The tabulated scores of each of the measurements were added together to create a numerical value for each face, which was then compared with millions of images of faces culled from virtually every source on the Internet, as well as the databases of the “Five Eyes” intelligence agencies of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Any image with a significantly different numerical value from the unknown images was instantly discarded by the computer, but those close in value were then compared more carefully.

The computer checked through the individual measurements for additional matches. If the ears were the same distance from the nose, the computer went on to the periocular depth. If that was similar to the unknown image, then the score measuring shape of the jawline was compared. If that panned out, then the computer moved on to the shape of the lips.

In this fashion, millions of images were compared with the unknown image. The process took some time, of course. Although all faces are different—even identical twins have differing measurements when evaluated as precisely as the facial-recognition software did—many faces of people who do not appear to the naked eye to be that similar actually have value scores that are nearly alike.

Gavin expected it would be another few hours before he knew if he would be able to put names to any of the five faces from Skála’s computer.

While Gavin’s monitor spun images faster than a slot machine, he leaned forward with his face between his elbows. He felt like shit. There was no getting around the mistake he made in Prague. Jack Junior, to his credit, had tried to tell Gavin it wasn’t his fault, but Gavin knew he’d blown it. His own actions, or inactions, had led to the death of an important witness and nearly caused the death of his two friends and colleagues.

Gavin Biery had no idea how he would ever redeem himself for his error.