Rogue Warrior: Holy Terror Part 12

There's nothing like a Bombay Sapphire at 35,000 feet to clear your head. It helps to have room to stretch your legs, which you do in first cla.s.s. First cla.s.s also offers a strategic position to launch a counterattack on any terrorist sc.u.mbags who decide dying for Allah is such a good deal that they want to take a few hundred or thousand people with them.

Whatever else you want to say about 9/11-and you can say a lot-the Americans who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania when they rushed the c.o.c.kpit were true heroes, role models for us all. They stood up and said "We're not going to take it." These were regular, everyday people-not specially trained SpecWarfare operators. Facing certain death, they stood up for their country and their fellow Americans. If you want inspiration, look no further than that hallowed field where they came to earth.

Getting from Cairo to Tokyo involved three different flights. I caught up on some of my phone messages during the downtime between connections. Among the people I spoke to was Pus Face, whose requests for updates monopolized my voice mail's available memory.

My relationship with Uncle Sugar and his various va.s.sals is a complicated one. Red Cell International is a business, and like every other business, we can't afford to work for free. But on the other hand, I can't bill for every single second either. There's also the fact in our line of work you can't always be concerned about the dollar signs. Stockholders may not like to hear this, but there's more to the bottom line than profits.

All of which is my way of justifying why I was torturing myself by talking to Pus Face when I was under no contractual obligation to do so. I also hoped to pull a favor or two out of him, if not now, then in the near future.

Being a general, he was under the mistaken impression that not only did his s.h.i.t not stink, but that I admired the heaps of it he left in the latrine. Disabusing him of this misperception would have taken more time than the battery in my satellite phone would allow. So I loosened up a few vocal cords I hadn't called on since my old Navy days and made my voice sound almost worshipful.

I didn't pucker my lips. Some things are just biologically impossible.

"General, Marcinko here," I said when he picked up the phone.

"d.i.c.k-good man."

Oh yeah. Those of you in the military who have had the pleasure of dealing with superior officers realize what that means: duck!

"Did you get Saladin?" He sounded like a kid at Christmas who'd been expecting a shiny new bike.

"No. Did you?"

He didn't know how to answer that. I took advantage of the pause.

"I have some people in the Middle East who might find it useful to have the cooperation of some Egyptian authorities," I told him. "We might need an official cover for something we're going to obtain off the record. They also might need some transport and that sort of thing. If we could use your name when-"

I got no further than that.

"Under whose authority are you using my name?" Pus Face's voice had risen two octaves.

"I haven't. I wanted to get a contingency plan ready."

"Under whose authority? Whose? For what purpose? Why? Where?"

He undoubtedly sputtered on for a few minutes, but I didn't waste my time or sat phone battery listening. Ultimately, I got a DIA friend to volunteer to help Doc with any arrangements he'd need.

My concerns about Saladin faded exponentially as I approached Tokyo. Some of my fondest memories with Red Cell involve busting chops at Narita, Tokyo's airport and one of the biggest and busiest in the world. Talk about memory lane: I froze my b.a.l.l.s off in a culvert near the runway we landed on, and sprinkled a knapsack's worth of IEDs-simulated, of course-around the hangar area. And that doesn't even count the real action later on.

I cleared customs and was on my way to grab a ridiculously overpriced taxi when a familiar voice stopped me mid-stride.

"Marcinko-san! Ohayo gozaimasu, you round-eyed, dogbreath jacka.s.s!"

Ah. Music to my ears. I whirled and with a grin returned the compliments.

"Ohayo gozaimasu, and f.u.c.k you too, you little monkeybrain c.o.c.kbreath squirt."

Toshiro Okinaga gave a characteristic chortle. I realized I was lucky to have cleared customs before he caught up with me. Otherwise Tosho would have suggested that the officials give me a hard time. I would have heard the chortle for hours as I answered their questions.

"Come, my car is this way. I have two Grocks for you," he added, changing the "l" in Glock to an "r" as if he were an actor in a forties B movie. Toshu's English is as good as mine-he probably knows just as many curses-but he loves to ham up his accent. "But it will cost you, Marcinko-san."

Payment was several Kirins at the hotel bar. Even though the beers cost the equivalent of twenty-four dollars American-ouch!-I got the better end of the deal by far. The taxi to the airport would have cost twice that much. When I had last seen him he was a lieutenant inspector; he had now been promoted to captain and now commanded his own Kunika section.

I'd already given Tosho a bit of background when I called to say that I'd be on my way. After we caught up a bit, he gave me a quick rundown on what he knew of BetaGo. Though owned by Europeans, the company did a good deal of business in Asia and had recently formed a subsidiary to handle it. Part of the subsidiary was to be owned by Chinese stockholders-specifically, members of the Communist Party leadership and two high-ranking army generals. This wasn't necessarily unusual-the Commies in China have proven remarkably good at capitalism, and having their backing greases the skids inside the country. An old-line j.a.panese banking firm that used BetaGo's services had also been approached as a possible partner but had declined, probably not because of the Chinese involvement but because they preferred to have their choice of courier services.

"You think someone's stealing from them?" Tosho asked as we punctuated our Kirins with a round of sake.

"They claim they just want someone to look over their operations. It's possible they're just paranoid about being robbed. But I doubt they'd be willing to spring for my services if they didn't suspect something along those lines."

"Money?"

"They move records around mostly. Currency and securities aren't a big part of their business, and there are so many ways of keeping track of them that I doubt that's where the problem is. But data's another story."

Shunt had suggested the industrial espionage angle, pointing out that copying disk backups of data could be easily done. Depending on what the data was, a rival company might pay dearly for a look. But there was no sense in speculating; I'd find out soon enough.

"I'll help any way I can," offered Tosho. "If you need anything, just pick up the phone."

"I intend to."

There is an old Oriental saying that, translated into English, goes something like this: Always watch a nation that uses two sticks to pick up one grain of rice, and one stick to carry two buckets of s.h.i.t. So I was on my guard as well as my best behavior the next day when I reported to BetaGo's Asian headquarters on the umpteenth floor of a sleek gla.s.s-and-metal tower in Tokyo's business district. The receptionist sat at a polished wooden table at the far end of an otherwise empty hall. Over the years I have come to understand that j.a.panese corporations furnish their offices in inverse proportion to their wealth; if you enter a bank with a lot of furniture, go quickly to the teller and withdraw whatever you've got there. In this case, the bare room convinced me I should have asked for ten times my usual fee, instead of the mere three times we had settled on.

The receptionist waited for me to say who I was, then bowed her head and told me it was a great honor for the j.a.panese office of BetaGo to host me. Within seconds, the vice president in charge of Asian operations, Yosiro f.u.ki, appeared, followed by a phalanx of a.s.sistants dressed in identical dark blue suits. f.u.ki, a short, thin man whose English had a good amount of Texas in it, thanked me for coming so promptly and insisted that we would now have lunch. Having done business in j.a.pan before, I knew it was senseless to resist, and I soon found myself neck-deep in eel sushi. This was just the first course of a day and a half of meetings, none of which actually included any mention of business, let alone any specific problems the company might be encountering. Eventually-in a karaoke bar, if memory serves-we got down to the matter at hand. f.u.ki said that the decision to hire me had been made in Europe and, while he didn't agree with it, he didn't disagree with it either. This was polite j.a.panese speak for "My bosses foisted you on me and I hate your guts, because you're nothing but a round-eyed spy trying to screw me out of my cushy setup here."

I told him I had no problem with making a copy of my report available to him unofficially before supplying it to Europe.

f.u.ki blinked, smiled, and ordered another round of drinks-"Bombay in honor of Marcinko-san." From that point on we were best buddies. We even shared the microphone on "My Way" later in the evening.

Skipping some of the wrinkles and off-key drunken singing, BetaGo had a number of systems in place to make sure they weren't robbed. Money and securities traveled under heavy guard, usually with help from the local police and military units. The bags and other containers were b.o.o.by-trapped, and the currency was generally marked. There were several other checks in place. Someone might get away with a theft, but the BetaGo people would know they were robbed. Frankly, I could offer suggestions to boost security on this half of the operation simply from what I heard in the bar that night.

Protecting the backup data that they moved around, however, was in many ways much trickier. Aware that the information might be targeted for industrial or commercial espionage, BetaGo had already taken a number of steps to protect it. The most basic of these were tamper-proof bags and around-the-clock surveillance. A layer of ultrasensitive rice paper covered certain envelopes, making it impossible to disturb them without leaving evidence behind. Small radio tags were placed on packages so they could be tracked via satellite 24/7.

Typically, a pair of two-man teams would be used for a mission, with the teams subject to random supervisor checks. Mostly the couriers were low-key; they didn't pull up in armored cars, for example, and dressed like tourists or businessmen, depending on the situation. (They were all native to the region and fluent in the local language, though not necessarily residents of the country or even Asian.) f.u.ki believed that these steps were more than enough. He was not, in fact, convinced that the data-mostly backup files that were being taken to company headquarters for safekeeping-would be useful to all but the most cutthroat compet.i.tor. But he acknowledged that he might be wrong, especially since "Europe" had not shown a willingness to spend money on consultants in the past. He was looking over his shoulder, and wondering why.

So was I. The setup sounded secure, which meant there were probably dozens of problems with it. But generally if you have a reason to investigate something, you lay out your suspicions to the investigator, or at least push him in the direction of the problem. I came away from my karaoke session with a sore throat and the impression that my report was going to be used to rea.s.sure potential investors or insurers who might have to pay for a screwup.

Like I said, I should have charged ten times my normal fee.

Couriers moved from j.a.pan to China, then to Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, and back to j.a.pan. Pickup times varied, but the days didn't.

Why, you ask? I know I did. Apparently the company spent a lot of money on airplane tickets for the couriers and backup teams. Trying to save some money, the comptroller had negotiated a bulk discount. You guessed it: The terms of the contract called for certain flights to be used. Well, duh. And I bet the comptroller got a raise that month.

I spent the next two days following couriers around j.a.pan, noting problems in their security structure that were only slightly more subtle. BetaGo's operations were far from the worst I've ever seen. The people who worked there had gone through background checks. They were required to demonstrate their proficiency on the gun range every few months. (Shooting paper, but at least they knew where the trigger of the weapon was.) They were also decently paid, with regular bonuses and time off. If I were grading security on an AF scale, I'd give them a C-minus.

While I was honing my karaoke, the other members of Red Cell International were having fun in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. After he disposed of Ali Goatf.u.c.k, Danny and his shooters checked around in Pakistan for potential links back to Saladin and his organization. The slim leads they had withered quickly. By the time someone in Pakistani military intelligence sent a warning that Goatf.u.c.k's demise had been linked to "unknown Americans visiting Islamabad within the past five days," Danny and team had left the country. The shooters got two weeks paid vacation. Danny flew to Afghanistan to take Doc's place lending a helping hand to our operations there.

Speaking of Doc: He was within twenty yards of the Egyptian submarine when it pulled into its slip at Alexandria. He could have been closer, but the spot gave him a better vantage point to film the crew. It took him, Grape, and Big Foot about thirty-six hours, but they were able to confirm that no crew members were missing. The submarine's log put it where it was supposed to be on the night of my adventure on the Sicilian coast. (How did they get a look at the log? Let's just say there's an interesting entry in Doc's expense vouchers for that month ent.i.tled "research" and leave it at that.) This wasn't definitive proof that the submarine hadn't been there-I wouldn't record illegal activity in a log book either. But it wasn't promising. Doc wanted to spend a few more days investigating the captain and other members of the crew. He had to stay in Egypt anyway, in case Shunt turned up anything from the key loggers I'd planted, and to "service" the bugs I'd planted at Bakr's. I told him to give it a few more days, but to be ready to pack it up if he were needed elsewhere.

I was willing to admit that I'd made a mistake about the submarine. But I'd seen something. What was it?

"Maybe you just need to get your eyes examined," snapped Trace when I spoke to her. "Face it, d.i.c.k, it could have been any small boat on the water with a flashlight."

"I saw a conning tower. I've seen them often enough to know what I was looking at."

She grumbled something I couldn't understand-probably an Apache word for "stubborn," though I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction by asking. The boat the dead tangos had used had still not been found, nor had any real progress been made on the investigation into the attempted takeover at St. Peter's.

"How did these people invent spaghetti?" said Trace, venting her frustration with the Italian authorities.

"They did it the old-fashioned way," I told her. "They stole it from the Chinese."

China happened to be the next stop in my review of the BetaGo operation. I decided to take two runs through. One would be announced-the couriers' supervisor would know I was there, though the couriers themselves wouldn't be informed. I'd also talk to the local subsidiary and some of the people who used the service. Ordinarily, I'd've done none of this, but BetaGo's j.a.panese executives had already decided to help me out by informing the Chinese what was going on. When I found that out, I made sure everyone knew my exact schedule. Then I arranged to be in China two days ahead, so I could pick up the couriers on the run just before the one I was supposed to watch.

The route ran from Shanghai to Nanjing to Wuhan, down to Nanning and then into Thailand, where the main stop was Bangkok, the capital. The couriers used commercial airlines to get from j.a.pan to Shanghai; from there leased aircraft were used. Again, cost consciousness at headquarters-and maybe an inside deal with the Chinese-had conspired to make this a very weak link in the operation. The airplanes were always leased from the same company, which was owned by two retired Chinese army generals. Its entire fleet consisted of two Xian Y-7-100s (Chinese versions of Russian military transports) surplussed by the Chinese military a few years before. Watch the airplanes, and you knew the couriers' schedule. Infiltrate the ground crew at the airports-admittedly not as easy as in the U.S., since in most cases the military ran things-and you had complete access to the couriers' cargo until the plane left for Bangkok. From that point, a number of carriers were used on a seemingly random basis for transport to Korea and back to j.a.pan.

I picked up my Chinese visa-multiple entries, just to be safe-and arranged to see Tosho to hand over the guns I'd borrowed. We ended up at a police gun range, shooting for our dinner-loser paid. It took nearly three hundred rounds before Tosho finally faltered and missed the bull's-eye. I knew better than to accept an offer of double or nothing. He paid off handsomely, with dinner and c.o.c.ktails at STB 139, one of the cla.s.siest (and most expensive) restaurants in the city. We hit the bars after that, progressing from Kirin to sake to Bombay and back again. I skipped sleep-why sleep when you can hoist a few with an old friend? Besides, if you're not sleeping or f.u.c.king, why be in bed?

I ended up at Tokyo airport about an hour before the first flight to Shanghai. I'm sure I looked like a madman and smelt like one, too: perfect dirtbag cover. (SEAL Team Six and the original Red Cell always traveled out of uniform-way out of uniform, with beards and long hair to match the civilian outfits. This was one of the keys to our success. Rumor has it that after I left, Red Cell members got new T-shirts and grooming standards. The bra.s.s never could figure out why the unit's effectiveness plummeted. Then again, the admirals were probably happy, since making the unit members stand out decreased the number of embarra.s.sing reports on security deficiencies.) When I booked my flight to China from j.a.pan, I knew only the day that the couriers were leaving, not who they were or which flight they would take. But there were only three flights to Shanghai from Tokyo that day, and I guessed that a company scrimping on airfare wouldn't bother to route the couriers through a third country and pay for the extra stop. I booked seats on all three flights, using slightly different variations of my name to confuse the computers tracking suspicious activity. ("Mar Cinko" may be instantly recognizable to a person as "Marcinko," and thus easy to explain to the clerk at the desk as an operator error made by one of the coworkers. But to the computer, the names are very different and don't set off any alarms.) Fifteen minutes after I got to the airport and checked in, four young men with very bad haircuts and loose-fitting jackets entered the gate area. I'd been expecting just two couriers, but I noticed that one of the men had a carry-on bag tagged with a brown ribbon similar to one I'd seen a courier in j.a.pan use. I discovered a "problem" with my ticket that took me to the desk area just behind them. There were ribbons on all of their bags, even though they were using pa.s.sports from different countries (three from Korea, one from Thailand). I gathered that I was behind the main team and its backup, which turned out to be correct. Ordinarily they stayed far apart, but in their minds the job didn't begin until they touched down in China, and so there was no harm showing up at the airport together.

I took photos of each with my new j.a.panese cell phone. I emailed them to an address I could access later, but it would have been just as easy to send them to an accomplice in China.

What if I'd been wrong? What if the men were a third of an international basketball team, traveling together?

Then I would have been in Shanghai early enough to watch the other two flights. But I wasn't wrong. After we reached Shanghai and had our visas sniffed, the men split into two groups. I followed the trail team as they headed toward the new subway line that runs from the airport to the city. That meant leaving my driver outside to catch up with me in the city. It wouldn't matter to him. I'd worked with Lo Po in the past, and not only did he know what to do, he knew he'd be paid no matter what happened.

My Chinese was not the best, even though I'd spent a few hours brushing up on the plane ride with a "long-hair dictionary" and a handy book on idioms. I did, however, have a secret weapon-a prototype of a new Phraselator handheld translation machine leant to me by a friendly ex-SEAL named Ace J. Sarich.

Sarich's company, VoxTec, is based in Annapolis. The original Phraselator saw service in Afghanistan in 2002. About the size of a Palm Pilot personal digital a.s.sistant, the unit has also been supplied to police, hospital workers, and EMTs. (Hold on, tourists-there's a slimmer model in the works.) The standard version uses memory cards that contain nearly sixty languages and 15,000 phrases in a library that can be customized depending on a client's needs. Chinese is easy-try Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, and Dari, which are all offered. You can either say the word you want and get the translation, or scroll to what you want and let the machine do the talking. There are a couple of other nifty features-it's modular, which means you can take off the speaker and microphone and mount a GPS. And while it normally runs on lithium rechargeables, in a pinch you can slot in two AAs. My prototype allowed for two-way conversation in real time without having to hit a lot of different switches or swap cards around. Ace says it will be about ten years before the two-way version hits the market; if it's as good as the beta I was playing with, I'd advise putting your order in now.

The hotel was near the World Financial Center and the first team wandered around the area before checking in. Either they were lost, sightseeing, or checking to see if they were being trailed. They eventually made it to the hotel. When I was sure they had checked in I called Lo Po on his mobile and told him where to meet me.

Calling Lo Po my driver may give you the wrong impression about his abilities. His father was an American citizen who moved to Hong Kong to do business soon after Nixon visited the mainland in the seventies. From Hong Kong he set up shop in Shanghai, where he eventually married a local woman; Lo Po is the product of that marriage.

Lo runs a "research bureau" that aids overseas business people. The company is a cross between a detective agency and a security firm. I met him a while back when I was giving a terrorism seminar in D.C.; Lo Po asked so many d.a.m.n questions during the Q&A that I had to invite him for drinks afterward to get him to shut up. I introduced him to Bombay Sapphire, and in return he straightened out my p.r.o.nunciation of Mandarin curse words. Lo will never be a better-than-average shot as long as he insists on using his piece-of-s.h.i.t Chinese Type 59 pistol, but otherwise his skills are above average. He can fly helicopters and is rated as a parachute instructor. His English is good, his German better. And he's inherited his father's ability to deal with Chinese bureaucracy.

We didn't need too many of his skills that afternoon as the couriers made their run. The heavy traffic in the city made it easy to follow their car, a Toyota they had leased ahead of time. Lo Po had rented us motor scooters, but we could have done just as well walking. They had two pickups in the city, and I was able to get close enough to take pictures with the camera-equipped cell phone both times. They were picking up backup files and some papers, physically transporting them out of the country. The files were stored on tape cartridges and DVD disks; everything fit neatly into two medium-sized suitcases.

After their second stop, they headed toward Hongqiao, an airport near Shanghai used mainly for domestic flights. I suppose I could have contented myself with the photos, pointing out that I had spotted the couriers and gotten by their trail team without being stopped. But somehow that seemed too easy.

The couriers' airplane met them at a terminal used for charter flights, rather than at the hangar; they had to pa.s.s through a common lobby and a security area. Just as the couriers approached the security checkpoint, an angry policeman pulled them aside.

"Mai yuk!" said the officer. "Don't move."

The two men stopped quickly, asking politely what was going on. The police officer demanded to see the bags. Standing next to him was a taxi driver-Lo Po-who said two identical bags had been stolen from a pa.s.senger. The policeman might have been doubtful, but in a difficult situation he would trust the word of a countryman over a foreigner, which the couriers' pa.s.sports showed them to be.

Lo could have pressed his case and probably come away with the bags. The trail team was still outside the building, parking the cars; we could have had the two couriers locked behind bars before they realized anything was up.

The couriers and trail team reunited in the waiting area a.s.signed to their charter. Lo, wearing a new cap and shirt, watched from the tarmac as they walked out from the building to the plane, waved at the pilot, and got on board, folding up the small ladder from the rear hatchway after them. Security at the airport was provided by the Chinese military, but as Lo observed, once you were past the gate, the privates on duty to a man a.s.sumed you were where you were supposed to be, as long as you looked certain about it. And like soldiers anywhere, the few who might question a civilian would undoubtedly shy from stopping an officer.

While Lo was playing courier interruptus and then seeing the BetaGo people off, I caught a flight to Nanjing. This got me on the ground a few minutes ahead of the couriers-a good thing, because I had trouble getting the rental car Lo had reserved for me and just barely managed to pick up the trail team. Nanjing was all business, with three quick stops and then a return run to the airport. This caused me some problems since I'd thought they'd be taking off in the morning, and buying a last-minute plane ticket wasn't easy. My interest in doing so aroused the suspicions of airport security, and I had to spin a c.o.c.k-and-bull story about a nonexistent business partner who'd gotten ill. Fortunately, my handheld translator fascinated the two men who came over to check me out; I told them a few off-color jokes and left them laughing.

I made it to Wuhan about an hour after my targets did. I couldn't follow them into the city, but with the airplane waiting I didn't have to. I made sure I had plane reservations for Nanning on the only flight out the next morning, then took a stroll around the grounds.

The couriers were staying in the city for the night, and a local security firm had been hired to provide security at the airport where the plane waited while they made their pickup. The security firm was actually a local army unit-or maybe I have that backward. Six young Chinese recruits stood around the airplane as it sat in front of a hangar waiting for pa.s.sengers and crew to return. The soldiers had been well trained-as infantry fodder. Guarding empty-looking airplanes was a bit above their skill level.

I don't look particularly Chinese, but it's amazing how far a pair of greasy coveralls and a few curse words in the local patois can get you. I found a mechanic's toolbox in a hangar nearby, then strolled over to the plane. I nodded and went right to work, checking the air pressure in the tires. (Never know when one of those suckers is going to go flat.) That done, I pulled myself up on the wheel and had a good look at the engine. After I confirmed to my satisfaction that it was an engine, I walked around to the other side, where the crew had conveniently left the hatch open and its fold-down stairway deployed. The hardest thing about my entire adventure was remembering which b.u.t.ton to push so the flash on the cell phone wouldn't go off when I took a picture of the suitcases stacked neatly in the back.

As the pickups were made, the couriers attached and activated radio tags so they could be tracked by satellite. Similar technology is used in the U.S. to track truck shipments. It's fairly reliable, but it can give you a false sense of security. A radio gadget that fits in the palm of your hand is no subst.i.tute for a pair of standard-issue eyeb.a.l.l.s.

Actually, the gadget they were using didn't quite fit in my hand, as I discovered after I searched the plane and went to return my toolbox. BetaGo rented the hangar to keep spare equipment. (There was even a little sign declaring that it was theirs and that visitors weren't allowed. Too bad I'm not very good at reading Chinese.) Toward the back I found two of the large boxes used for shipping the materials, along with a complete set of bags, tamper-evident paper, and transponders. I found these entirely by accident, my curiosity aroused by the set of locks on the only cabinet in the building. Having spent nearly a whole minute picking the locks, it seemed like I was due something for my trouble and so I took a transponder.

A real mechanic met me as I left the hangar, but with the help of some strategic bowing and a mumbled "lao jia" ("excuse me," though if you cross your legs right it's clear you're looking for the restroom), I managed to get past. A few moments later I had changed back into Western clothes and entered the pa.s.senger terminal, where I spent the next few hours dozing until my plane to Nanning boarded at six the next morning.

I got to Nanning in time to see the couriers' plane land. Rather than follow them on their rounds, I moseyed over to their plane, which was guarded by another contingent of soldiers from the People's Army. When something works, you stick with it, and so I put on my coveralls and looked for a toolbox. The best I could do was a crescent wrench. Patting it meaningfully, I walked toward the airplane. I got only a few yards before someone yelled out in Chinese for me to halt. I turned around nonchalantly, and found myself staring down at a lieutenant who proceeded to quiz me on everything from world events to my shoe size.

At its best, my Chinese is shaky, and while I had the handheld translator with me I decided it was best not to pull the gadget out. Instead, I explained in English-punctuated Chinese that I was a contract worker for UK Airline Maintenance, and that I was supposed to install a new radar altimeter in a certain airplane, which thus far I had been unable to find. I had no papers, but I did have a radar altimeter-or rather a smallish electronic doodad that looked just like a radar altimeter, a.s.suming you had no clue what a radar altimeter looked like. In short order I was being led by the lieutenant to the plane. I fumbled around in the c.o.c.kpit for a while, then activated the radio tag and left it in plain sight on a shelf behind the copilot's seat. A half hour later I was back in the terminal, standing next to a window at the north side and seemingly gazing idly at the runway.

What sort of reaction would the appearance of an extra radio tag set off? An all-hands alert, isolating the cargo and sending in a response team to check everyone and everything out? An immediate call to the couriers to return and recheck their cases? An alert to the security forces to report any suspicious activity?

Answer: none of the above. In fact, there was no reaction that I could see. The team didn't return for another four hours, and when they did arrive, they gave no indication that they had been alerted to trouble. The plane took off a short time afterward.

The radio tag was equipped with an LED indicator that lit when it was on; even so, it was possible that it was malfunctioning. It was also possible that the aircraft would be locked down when it arrived at its next stop in Thailand. While I doubted this, it was a possibility, and so I decided to check on it by having an a.s.sociate in Thailand meet the plane. (I was due in Shanghai the next morning so I couldn't do it myself, even if there had been a flight out that night.) Si Bi Phiung lived in Thailand, but he had been born in Vietnam, the son of an army captain who fled about sixty seconds ahead of the Commie takeover. I'd met the father during my days trying to get a tan in Southeast Asia. He was a tough, no-nonsense soldier who could not be corrupted. His integrity nearly cost him his wife and child-the Viet Cong blew up his home while he was out on patrol, and it was only by luck that they were away with relatives that night. A few months later, he shipped his family over to Bangkok; I had a very minor role helping them get there, and his grat.i.tude has embarra.s.sed me ever since. Now retired, the elder Mr. Phiung worked for Thai Danu Bank in their corporate loss prevention department, a fancy way of saying he kept employees from putting their fingers in the till. Si had his own firm specializing in customs and security arrangements for multinationals based at Don Muang Airport in Bangkok, so he wouldn't have to go far to help out.

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but in this case it rolled a half-mile after it dropped. Unlike his dad, whom I've never seen without a smile on his face, Si frowns ninety-five percent of the time. But there's no doubt he's his father's son. His eyes pin you like railroad spikes, and if he takes out his pistol, you better say your prayers: He can clip the head off a matchstick at a hundred yards.

I called Si and asked if he could send someone over to check on the BetaGo flight when it landed. No way, he told me-any request from me was important enough for him to do it himself. I thanked him, then gave him a quick rundown of what I was looking for. It helped that he had heard of the company and knew where the aircraft would head after landing. When I insisted he bill me for the time, he gave a little snort that told me this was out of the question. I appreciate the sentiment-but I made a note to myself to send a check anyway.

Lo Po was waiting in Shanghai when I returned later that evening, a big smile on his face. He grabbed my bag and started out. "Mr. d.i.c.k, your plane late. You owe me two drinks."

He had already decided on a place for me to pay off: a chi-chi Western club in the Waitan (or in English, "Bund") area of the city where the drinks were as tall as they were expensive, and the waitresses wore skirts so high the customers got nose bleeds just looking at them. China has thrown big-time yuan at Shanghai in an effort to make it an international financial center, and if the city is not quite on par with New York, it isn't all that far behind. Among the amenities are luxury hotels, ridiculously fancy restaurants, and exotic clubs. Lo Po seemed determined to show me all of them, and who was I to refuse?

All this partying meant I had only time to shower and shave in the morning when I showed up for my meeting with the executives of Shanghai Century, BetaGo's Chinese partner. I brought Lo Po with me as an a.s.sistant and human translator, but like many Chinese executives, the company officials spoke competent English. It was clear within three seconds that while I would be treated with typical Asian courtesy, I might just as well have a big stamp across my forehead that read "Address at your own risk." They provided only the vaguest outline of their operations, cited no problems, and insisted showing me a video presentation on their company. With typical Chinese aplomb, they referred my questions about their operations to the vice president in charge of security, who of course was on the other side of the country and would not return for several weeks. My visit ended with a tour of the hangar where the aircraft used to transport the couriers was kept. Naturally, the second aircraft was out for maintenance and unavailable for inspection. (I spotted it in a parking area on the other side of the airport later. It had been left unattended, and anyone could get aboard with minimal effort. Yes, I have the pictures to prove it.) They were very interested in showing me how the radio tags were activated, but claimed to have no information on the tracking, which was done in j.a.pan. My questions about contingency plans, emergency response units, subst.i.tute routes and couriers-all were referred to the absent vice president. My afternoon was rounded out with testimony from some customers about the great service they received, and then I was whisked away to a fancy restaurant for a meal that consisted primarily of toasts to my health, punctuated by dishes of noodles and fried fish. When it was over I collapsed back in my hotel bedroom, as much from overeating as fatigue. I remained dead to the world until roughly 2 a.m. local time, when I was woken by a loud crashing noise.

The noise was me, falling out of the bed. I was shivering and sweat was pouring from every pore in my body. I crawled on my hands and knees to the porcelain G.o.d, and a.s.sumed the position. I stayed there for thirty minutes, during which I removed a good portion of bodily liquids and part of my stomach, without relieving any of the pain. My heart pounded so loudly it echoed against the walls of the little bathroom, and I was so weak I had to struggle to pull myself up to the sink so I could wash my face. A glance at the mirror sent me back to the toilet-my face was covered with large purplish welts, as if I'd been pummeled during my sleep.

I can tell you this about the Shanghai Medical Center-it's very white. That's about all I saw of it: one continuous blur of light from the ambulance to the emergency room. By the time I managed to blink I'd been seen by five different specialists. The consensus-I'm translating loosely from the Chinese here-was that I was suffering from a mysterious ailment.

And here I thought I was just barfing my brains out.

They hooked me up to an IV at some point to replace some of the fluids I'd lost. They pumped my stomach even though I'd done the job myself. They gave me a number of shots, hitting me with everything from penicillin to eye of newt. After several hours of prodding, blood sampling, and head-to-toe X-rays (I can report that I do indeed have a brain), they arrived at a fresh diagnosis. I was not suffering from a mysterious ailment. What I had was a very mysterious ailment.

Glad we got that straightened out.

I soon found myself being wheeled down the hall toward one of the few rooms in the place that had a sign in English as well as Chinese. The Chinese characters looked long enough to be a novel. The English contained one word, in bright red capital letters: WARNING.

Apparently the Chinese words said something along the lines of "American dogs radiated here," because a doctor soon appeared and explained that he wanted me to take some sort of test that involved drinking radioactive barium. I told him I had no intention of becoming a dirty bomb. I was leaving, even if I had to crawl out on what was left of my belly.