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“My team at Langley are on it. We’ve got Singapore station and Far East desk helping. But if she doesn’t do something different than she’s done in the past two weeks—that is, show her face—then I don’t have high hopes we’re going to locate her.”
Watkins leaned forward on the table. “This meeting was called because you said you’ve made progress. I seriously hope you just led with the bad news and are now going to hit us with some good news, because if you call that significant, I’m going to be disappointed.”
Pace smiled a little. “I wouldn’t spin everyone up for that, sir.”
“Good. Go on, then. What about that circuit board you picked up from Mexico?”
Pace hadn’t outright lied about the origin of the intelligence he’d passed on to HQ, but he’d been evasive, and Watkins and his staff had not pressed, assuming Pace had a reason for not telling them, and that reason might be that they could be compromised with the details.
“That’s borne significant fruit, actually, and it’s the reason I called the meeting and asked SAC director Hernandez to attend. We traced several components on the board to various companies, mostly in China, but that doesn’t really tell us much because these components are bought and sold around the world and could be acquired on the retail market. The chips themselves aren’t anything special, either. Mass produced, Qualcomm, Intel, Micron, just what you’d find in any PC, TV, or other computerized device. The PCB, on the other hand—”
Watkins held a hand up. “PCB?”
“The printed circuit board, sir. The broken plastic piece itself that the chips are affixed to. We’ve traced this back to a single fabricator in Guangzhou, China, and this fabricator works almost exclusively making PCBs used in China’s defense industry. The boards are customized to fit into drones, aircraft black boxes, missile systems, and the like. In fact, no boards from this fabricator are exported out of China at all.”
Nance said, “Then it’s China doing this.”
Lacy disagreed. “It’s China building these armed robots, perhaps. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are orchestrating the killings.”
Before anyone in Virginia could reply, Pace said, “There is one anomaly, however. Eleven months ago, a shipment of PCBs from this fabricator were not exported, but they were sold to a company called Wan Chai Machine Technology Limited, an industrial automation firm in Hong Kong. Essentially, this company makes advanced robot arms for manufacturing automobiles, televisions, things like that.
“It’s strange that the fabricator shipped goods to this civilian concern, because every other shipment of PCBs we managed to trace went to defense industry–related companies in China.
“It’s even stranger,” Pace added, “because this company in Hong Kong is exclusively a domestic firm. They don’t export; they import chips and metals and software from around the world, but they don’t ship anything out of the country themselves.”
He held for effect, then said, “Until roughly two weeks ago. At that point, they sent the first of three shipments abroad.”
“Where did these shipments go?” Watkins asked.
“One shipment of six pallets, seven hundred sixty pounds in weight, went to the U.S. via an air cargo freight company. We checked and it was marked as picked up at a freight forwarder at Miami International Airport six days ago.”
Everyone looked at Pace, waiting for him to make a connection.
But Angela Lacy spoke up. “The assault in Mexico. Where this circuit board was found.”
“That’s our working assumption. Someone picked the goods up in Florida and took them to Mexico, and then deployed them at Jack Tudor’s residence in Tulum.”
He flipped a page in front of him. “The second shipment went over water; it was a forty-foot shipping container, capable of carrying up to sixty thousand pounds, and it was delivered to Singapore.”
“Singapore.” Watkins said it softly, taking it in.
“I should note,” Pace added, holding up a hand, “the shipment was picked up and, supposedly, delivered to a warehouse facility there.”
Watkins said, “Please tell me you have someone from Singapore station watching that warehouse.”
Pace said, “They are on their way there now; this information is only a half hour old. Of course we only know what the bill of lading says. We don’t know the cargo is there in the warehouse; it could have been delivered somewhere else.”
Watkins turned to Hernandez. “You need to get a team over there, ready to raid that facility, and this ops center the German woman works at if it somehow turns up.”
“Understood,” he said, and he made a note on a pad in front of him. “Charlie X-ray is in Seoul. Could be on site in eight to ten hours. Maybe quicker.”
“Get ’em moving.”
“On it,” Hernandez said, and he looked back to one of his team standing against the wall, who turned and shot out the door.
Now Watkins looked back up to the monitor. “And the third shipment?”
“Six days ago a forty-foot container was put on a ship at the port of Hong Kong. Late this evening, the ship will call to port in Havana, Cuba.”
