EXFIL by Anthony Patton (best book reader txt) 📕

Those of us in the intelligence business would never use NIPRNet or SIPRNet to share or transmit sensitive information, but military personnel, civilians, and contractors around the world did, and Li’s unit had now experienced great success in shutting them down and hacking them to steal information.

Years after Islamabad, I found myself back in Li’s orbit.

As so often happened, a file review revealed a narrative that pointed forward in a purposeful way, keeping in mind that reports were written with the specific goal of creating a narrative—the hope of peeling the onion to move a case toward recruitment.

From the first contact in Islamabad to the credit card incident at the museum, one couldn’t help but connect a series of interesting dots to conclude that the time was ripe for success. After all these years, we finally found Li in a vulnerable position, and were ready to take advantage of it, to strike while the iron was hot. I couldn’t help but feel that fate was bringing us together.

FIFTEEN

There was a last-minute flurry of bureaucratic scrambling to determine who would ultimately approve and fund the plan to recruit Lieutenant Colonel Li. This was a big step for me because I had never gotten the green light to recruit or pay a source; it wasn’t the way military attachés normally did business. Thank goodness, DIA found the funding—not CIA or FBI—thus giving us the all-important “credit” if Li were to accept the pitch.

Everyone had to get credit as bureaucrats with windowless cubicles insisted on exerting their authority. In the end, some heavies intervened with special waivers and authorizations. To my surprise, everyone agreed that implicit blackmail was the best way to go. Go figure.

Easier said than done.

There was still the small but crucial detail of convincing Li to join me for dinner.

He knew full well that we wanted him to work for us. The credit card incident during our previous meeting had made him vulnerable, and we knew that he knew that we would investigate the issue. This alone might prompt him to decline the invitation.

I breathed a sigh of relief, however, when he said he was available, with a spot report up the chain of command that the meeting was a go. I credited his acceptance to my charm and the rapport we had built, but didn’t want to read too much into it.

Under normal circumstances, asking a source to commit espionage and provide secrets in exchange for money would only happen after several months of cultivated friendship.

In this case, we didn’t have that much time, so there was no way to assess with any degree of confidence how he might respond. But too much was at stake.

If he found a way to pay off his credit cards in the interim, our opportunity would be lost.

Convincing a would-be source to betray his country and provide secrets wasn’t a matter of bureaucratic decree. This was a serious business that sometimes rose to the level of ritual, with the Intelligence Officer and the newly minted source both leaving the event transformed, similar to how the marriage ceremony transforms husband and wife.

The secrets resulting from the operation, whether spoken or written—just like marriage vows—assumed a life of their own that merited special care and respect. The recruitment ritual sometimes involved hugs and slaps on the back over a cold beer, but other times, hearts raced and voices cracked as both sides contemplated the magnitude of the journey ahead.

There was nothing to stop Li from declining and reporting the pitch to his embassy.

He would probably get sent home and we would receive a slap on the wrist through formal diplomatic channels—aka, a demarche.

While I recognized that whether or not Li would accept the pitch was largely beyond my control, I also acknowledged that my promotion to brigadier general was probably hinging on it.

So, I sought to calm myself and, with the stage set for the big night, I tuned the radio to classic rock as I shaved and showered with intermittent air guitar solos.

The feeling wasn’t close to how I had felt before getting married to Beth but given the damage Li was wreaking on our government computers, I could hardly control myself.

Given that Li would face a pitch and might say no, I thought it was best for us to arrive separately, in case he wanted to excuse himself without making a scene.

Spies often tell the apocryphal story of a French diplomat who stood up in the middle of a restaurant and shouted with a thick accent, “Espionage, you want me to commit espionage?” before storming out to shocked onlookers.

◆◆◆

“I imagine you and Jiao are pleased to be overseas again?” I asked, slicing my prime rib and bathing it in the red wine and mushroom reduction. The implicit message hidden in my seemingly innocuous question was that we had been tracking his career and knew that this was his first overseas assignment with his family since Islamabad.

He set his silverware down neatly and finished chewing with a slight nod.

“We wanted our daughter to attend an American school to learn English.”

I nodded back, seeking evidence of an emotional reaction on his blank canvas—not out of the ordinary for the Chinese—but we had missed this important detail, a possible angle. It wasn’t clear whether China’s one-child policy had shaped their decision to have one child. “I know many Chinese diplomats aren’t allowed to travel overseas with family.”

“We are most fortunate,” he said and sipped his red wine. “How are Beth and the boys—Andrew and Troy, correct?”

“Good,” I said, managing the demands of eating and sustaining a polite conversation. “Thanks for asking. Beth is teaching at West Point. I hope to join them shortly.”

He smiled and nodded. “I enjoyed her book. Please pass on my congratulations.”

Nicely done, I thought, embarrassed that I hadn’t even finished her book myself. “I will,” I said as I sliced my steak. The dozen or so tables near us seemed