The Portal (A Delphi Group Thriller Book 2) by John Sneeden Read Free Book Online Page B

face. He guessed she was in her early or mid-thirties. She was more pleasant-looking than attractive.
    “This is Wu Mei-ling,” the Oracle began. “She is the daughter of a low-level Chinese diplomat, at least that’s the official version.”
    “In other words, she’s a spook,” Zane said, his eyes still fixed on the picture.
    “Yes, she is,” the Oracle said. “And apparently a good one.” Brett advanced to the next slide. Another photograph appeared, this one depicting a man in his forties with brown hair. “This is David Parsons, the agency’s senior field officer in Taipei, where Ms. Wu was operating. He had established contact with her and was in the process of recruiting her when disaster struck.
    “Apparently Chinese intelligence knew that Parsons worked for the CIA. He was under deep cover, and we still don’t know how they were able to determine who he was. Unfortunately, that gave them a leg up.”
    “This doesn’t sound like it’s going to end well,” Zane said.
    “It doesn’t. She managed to drug Parsons in his condominium then accessed virtually all of the electronic information stored on his agency-issued tablet.”
    “So what happened to Parsons? Is he dead?”
    Zane could see Hathaway squirming in his seat, clearly uncomfortable that the agency was being placed in a bad light. No wonder he’d let the Oracle take over.
    “No. Wu drugged him while they were on the couch, and after he passed out, she planted a Trojan in the tablet. The malware then copied all of the information contained in Parsons’s files and transmitted it to a server used by the Chinese military. Anyway, after planting the Trojan, she stuck around until Parsons woke up. They’d been drinking heavily at a restaurant earlier that evening, so he figured he’d simply succumbed to the alcohol.”
    Zane shook his head. “In other words, he never realized he’d been compromised.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Then how did we find out?”
    Hathaway cleared his throat and said, “We discovered it using sophisticated antivirus software developed by the NSA. It didn’t pick up the Trojan when it was loaded but was able to place it in quarantine after a full scan was run the following evening. Unfortunately, by then the damage was done.”
    “And Wu?” Zane asked.
    “She disappeared off the face of the earth,” the Oracle said. “We were going to play dumb, leave the Trojan in place, and feed the Chinese bad information through Parsons’s tablet, but apparently they were able to get everything they wanted and pulled out.”
    Zane remained silent for moment. Finally, he looked up and said, “This is all quite interesting, but what does it have to do with an audio transmission from the Amazonian rainforest?”
    “I’m glad you asked, Watson,” the Oracle said. He turned and motioned for Brett to bring up the next slide. It was a picture of Garet Slater, CIA field agent and owner of the Idaho lodge Zane had just visited.
    Zane leaned back and rubbed the stubble on his face. “Okay, now I’m even more lost than before.”
    The Oracle stared at the operative for a moment. It was as though he was waiting for him to put it all together.
    Suddenly a few fragments of understanding pierced his thoughts. “So, the information grab in Taipei is what brought the Chinese to the lodge?” Zane asked.
    The Oracle nodded slowly. “Correct. Slater had just sent Parsons a correspondence, one that Parsons hadn’t even read yet. In that email, Slater said that he would be at the lodge the following week, and he asked Parsons to join him to discuss a new operation.”
    Zane frowned. “So they were coming after Parsons? They had their information. Why kill him?”
    “They weren’t after Parsons,” Hathaway said. “They were after Slater.” He began to pace. “Garet made a big information grab in Taiwan a few years ago, one that did considerable harm to the Chinese military. They have a long memory and saw this as an opportunity to