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TWENTY-EIGHT
Back in the van, Jim Pace ordered the driver to take them to the airport. As the vehicle began rolling through Beacon Hill, he pulled out his phone to Google the name Xiang Di, one of only a few not crossed off the list.
The search turned up a lot of hits, but before he could click on the first one, the phone rang.
It was his assistant at Langley, a thirty-eight-year-old former helicopter pilot turned operations officer named Lynn Wells.
“Hey, Lynn.”
“If you’re near a TV, turn on the news. A man was killed in Toronto this morning. He’s tied to artificial intelligence.”
Pace yanked the list out of his jacket pocket. “Name?”
“Rene Descourts. He was an innovation expert at MIT.”
Pace didn’t have to look for the name; he knew it was there. “How was he killed?”
“Gunshot to the back of the head in a coffee shop near his parents’ home in Toronto.”
“He didn’t have security after everything going on?”
“Just a two-man detail. They were both killed, as well, along with an innocent bystander.”
“Lancer,” Pace said, and then he disconnected the call and looked at his search results.
Google told him that Xiang Di was a fifty-nine-year-old computer scientist from Shanghai, China, who had developed advanced algorithms used for improving deep neural networks, an important component of advanced artificial intelligence.
No surprise there, he told himself.
But scrolling down further, he learned Xiang had recently been rumored to be the deputy director of a specialized People’s Liberation Army unit that worked to convert commercial AI technology to military applications, and for this he’d been stripped of many scientific awards he’d received over the past two decades in the West.
Pace had worked at CIA for a year tracking Chinese intellectual property theft for military applications; he’d heard of the PLA unit, but he had no recollection of hearing the name of this man.
With a sigh, he looked up to Travers. “We’re going back to Langley. I’ve got to talk to our Chinese experts.”
“Got it. We’ll be at the airport in twenty-five minutes.”
Jim Pace watched Boston whip by outside the back window of the SUV, and then he pulled the copied list of names out of his coat pocket. Looking them over, he settled on Anton Hinton. He opened a database on his phone, scrolled through some names and phone numbers, then placed a call.
It took several seconds for the connection to be made, but eventually he heard a gruff male voice with an English accent.
“Yes?”
“Gareth Wren?”
“Who’s calling?”
“It’s Jim Pace. No chance you’d remember me, is there?”
There was a slight pause, and then the Englishman’s voice brightened up.
“Pace? I do remember you, of course. How are you? Still with the Agency?”
“They try and try but they can’t seem to get rid of me.”
“That’s a good man. You should be director of the paramilitaries by now.”
“I left door-kicking behind a long time ago. Went back to school, got my master’s. I’m a regular Company suit-and-tie man now.”
