The Prince of Risk A Novel(29)

A tap for a dot. A “Shh” for a dash.

There followed an excruciating two minutes of cat and mouse with Sullivan doing his best to decipher the series of dots and dashes. “Got it,” he said afterward.

“Sure?” asked Astor.

“I was an Eagle Scout, wasn’t I?”

“How quickly can you meet me?” asked Penelope Evans.

“An hour,” said Sullivan.

“Please hurry.”





18




Three seconds after Bobby Astor hung up with Penelope Evans, a transcript of the call landed in the technician’s inbox in Iceland, already translated into his native language and ready for forwarding to his master halfway around the world. The technician did not read the transcript. He had no interest in the affairs of the men and women on whom his master spied. There were far too many people to keep up with any one.

At last count, the satellite was programmed to intercept the communications of over 57,000 individuals. One slow evening he had perused the names listed next to the phone numbers. Some he recognized. Some he did not. But in general the names fell into two categories: government officials and corporate chieftains. There were presidents and prime ministers, senators and delegates from nearly every country on the globe, including plenty from his own. There were bankers and industrialists, chief executives of this corporation, chairmen of that. There were lawyers in Berlin and magistrates in Bulgaria. After an hour he abandoned his task. One thing was clear. Sooner or later, every influential individual in the world ended up on the list.

The technician tapped his keyboard, forwarding the message to his master’s private mailbox. His duty done, he swiveled in his chair and gazed out the window. It was midday and the sun blazed high in the sky. Crystals embedded in the fields of pumice sparkled like diamonds on a stormy velvet sea. He considered his position, working alone in such a solitary, isolated corner of the world. He daydreamed often about achieving a higher rank, of bettering his job and earning more money. He was a young man, bright, hardworking, obedient. Anything was possible.

The technician decided he was happy where he was. There were more important things than being influential. He did not want to end up on the list. When he talked to his girlfriend, he didn’t want anyone to be listening.





19




Magnus Lee, chairman of the China Investment Corporation, exited from the elevator at the twentieth floor. He checked the direction markers and set off to his right, toward offices 2050–2075. With its industrial carpeting, fluorescent lights, and wood veneer doors, it could be any corridor in any corporate office in the world. Though it was nearly midnight, a steady stream of men and women walked past. They were smartly dressed, well coiffed, purposeful of step, every bit the equal of their Western counterparts.

As he walked, he passed beneath signs hanging from the ceiling adjacent to each office door. Written in English and Chinese, the signs read GENERAL MOTORS, IBM, MICROSOFT, EXXON. He was currently on the twentieth floor of building F-100. He was not twenty floors above the earth’s surface. He was twenty floors beneath it.

F-100 stood for “Fortune 100.” And building F-100 was one of six interconnected structures in the sprawling subterranean complex that made up the Institute for Investment Initiative, or i3. Buildings F-200 to F-500 housed companies ranked 101 to 500. A sixth building, known only as T, was reserved for special projects and companies that possessed products, technology, or intellectual property deemed to have the highest strategic value for the state.

The CIC was the tip of the iceberg, the portion above water, impressive to behold but benign. i3 was the remaining three-quarters of the iceberg, the enormous mass that remained below the surface, hidden from view, and possessing an infinite capacity for danger.

Lee had founded i3 a year after taking the reins at the China Investment Corporation. It was not enough to invest in foreign companies. Investment provided an attractive monetary return, but it was the corporations that truly benefited. The infusion of capital enabled them to hire more workers, develop new products, and expand market share in their respective industries. If China was to compete, it must develop its own industry. It must make its own automobiles and airplanes, its own computers and software, its own everything. In short, it must assemble an economic and industrial infrastructure of the highest order that not only rivaled the West’s but surpassed it.



It was a daunting task…without help.

And so he had suggested an idea to his colleagues in the Ministry of State Security.

Industrial espionage as a state-sponsored covert policy.

An aggressive campaign of systematic, targeted thefts of any and all corporate knowledge, with the goal of copying, implementing, and improving said knowledge for the benefit of Chinese business.