Chapter 1

Washington, DC.

Arthur Shepard scrambled toward an elevator as its door began to close. He was due to give a briefing in a conference room five floors up.  The big wigs would all be there, including the Assistant to the Director of the CIA, Simon Conklin.  But the door closed too soon. Seeing no other elevators available, he charged towards the stairwell and bounded up the five flights of stairs. He was barely out of breath. He arrived at the conference room just as the others were taking their seats. Shepard went directly to the head of the conference table, opened his briefing folder, and greeted his audience.

"Good morning, gentlemen. I am ready to proceed with the morning briefing on Asia whenever you are."

Simon Conklin nodded his head, and Arthur began. There was nothing unusual about this briefing until he got near the end. Conklin began to ask him questions about Islamist terrorists in western China. His questions went from the general about Uyghurs to the specific, about Chinese positions on unknown terrorists believed to be inside their country. Arthur explained:

"Uyghur terrorists were marginal if they ever even existed. Right after 911, the Chinese government issued a report about this group; they called East Turkestan Islamic Movement operating clandestinely inside their country.  Their report claimed that ETIM was an Islamic extremist group with links to Al Qaeda composed of Uyghur radicals. We have never been able to verify the contents of this report independently. The prevailing thought among our East Asian analysts and the intelligence communities in both Japan and South Korea is that this was disinformation put out by the Chinese government to justify their human rights violations against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang.”

 “Would you consider Xinjiang a hot spot for the Chinese? Conklin asked.

“In matters of civil unrest, yes,”  Shepard replied. "As a hotbed of terrorism, no. Xinjiang is no Afghanistan. Much of the civil unrest in the area has come from the mistreatment the Uyghurs have suffered at the hands of the Han Chinese. The latter see the Uyghur community as an impediment for the grand designs they have for that region. The Chinese government has imposed permanent martial law in the region, complete with re-education camps for Muslims. As far as we can tell, the civil unrest has died down.  It is reminiscent of the bad old days of Mao Zedong's 'Cultural Revolution.'"

Shepard wasn’t sure how Simon Conklin would react to his editorializing. Typically, these kinds of briefings were supposed to be fact-based and opinion-free. But the Assistant Director gave no sign of displeasure and went ahead with another question.

“Is there anything in that report from the Chinese that has been verified?”

"The Chinese did give us names of people they identified as leaders of the ETIM," Shepard responded. "We did find some men with those names among those we killed with drones in Pakistan'. We were never able to determine if they were part of Al-Qaeda or just collateral damage. I should also point out that we incarcerated several Uyghurs in Guantanamo after being sold out by Pakistanis. We uncovered nothing from the interrogations that connected them to Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group. Eventually, they were released."

“And returned to China?”

"No, sir. They had fled China illegally, and some had, in the past, participated in separatist demonstrations. Sending them back to China would have been a death sentence. Cooperating counties in Eastern Europe accepted them."

At this point, Conklin decided the briefing was over. Shepard was thanked and dismissed. He wanted to ask why the upper echelon of the agency had developed a sudden interest in something as obscure as an old report from the Chinese about a non-existent terrorist group. But his job was not to ask questions of those above his pay grade. He had been a CIA analyst too long to make that kind of mistake.

He returned to his desk, still wondering why the briefing had turned the way it did. He was sure the Assistant Director already knew most of what Sheppard had covered. He got on the phone and began contacting sources. Several hours later, he concluded that Assistant Director Conklin had some need to know and that he, Shepard was not going to find that reason. The one guy who probably would have known, his best source when Shepard was in the field, had died.

 

Hangzhou, China

Richard Grant's head was killing him. It had been a night of revelry with his Chinese friends, and now he was paying the price. His head felt like a thousand Chinese laborers with picks and shovels were digging the Grand canal across his brain.

He had to pull himself together. The morning bell for the first class would ring in an hour, and his students would be waiting for their English lesson. They were passionate about learning English and had little patience with his shortcomings as a teacher. Getting into a drinking game with his friends would classify as one of those shortcomings.

The previous night had started the way many of his evenings began.  It was whiskey at a local hole in the wall, near the school, and then off to a  western bar near West Lake for more of the same. He was never too sure how he got home. Showered, dressed, and somewhat ready to go, he poured himself a shot of Jack Daniels and swallowed it in one gulp. The hair of the dog. No more. Showing up drunk to work was what got him fired from his teaching job back in the States. Blow it here, and he was finished for good.

He opened his balcony door and stepped out into the chilly morning, lit a cigarette, and stared at the scene below. People were moving about. Cars, bicycles, and e-bikes all flowing together on the road, flanked by the grey walls of other apartment buildings. All built like his. The cool air smelled of metal and ginger. It had been a hot and sultry summer, and the arrival of fall was a relief. Hot or cold, the air in Hangzhou had a smell and often a dirty brown look to it. There were many nice things about living in Hangzhou, but the air was not one of them. He rubbed his bald head, hoping that the blast of Jack Daniels would ease the pain, stubbed out his cigarette, and headed off to work.

By the end of the workday, Grant's headache was gone. He left the campus, but instead of heading back to his apartment, he decided to take a walk along the Qiantang River. A couple of weeks before, the river's famous tidal bore had made its appearance attracting thousands of tourists who lined the streets and the sidewalk where Grant now walked. The cell towers atop the hills on the opposite side of the river took away some aesthetics, but he always found the walks enjoyable. They were his way of getting a little exercise in his otherwise sedentary life.

There would be no partying tonight. Grant would dine alone just to be sure. He turned and walked back down Dongxin Avenue toward Xinhe Road, where a variety of restaurants awaited hungry patrons. He headed toward the same watering hole he had been the night before when he stopped in front of a restaurant where a cook stood in a window, making pasta for the viewing pleasure of passersby. The sign across the top did not identify the restaurant with Chinese characters but in Arabic script. Through the open-door, Grant could see the small restaurant with its simple furniture and its murals of desert scenes and camels. A door, slightly ajar opposite the entrance, revealed an even smaller room with a desk and computer. On the floor was a prayer mat.

"OK," Grant said to himself. "A Uyghur restaurant doesn't serve alcohol, so eating here will keep you sober at least through dinner." He sauntered in plopped his portly body down at one of the tables and began to study the menu, written in both Arabic and Chinese. He could read neither, but the choices came with pictures so he could just point at what he wanted. Grant encountered lots of restaurants in China with no English on the menu and had come to refer to them as "point and click" restaurants. 

He chose a chicken dinner and was about to take a sip of his Coca-Cola when Lawrence Trumbell, the headmaster of his school, walked in and stood in front of his table.

“Grant!” said Trumbell. “Well, you certainly look better than you did this morning.”

“Yes,” Grant replied. “It must have been something I ate last night. I thought I was coming down with the flu or something.”

"Something you ate, or maybe something you drank," Trumbell responded, giving Grant a disapproving look. "I have been going over grades for the last nine weeks, and I wanted to talk to you about your grades. You are giving lots of As."

"I have smart kids," Grant responded. "And, "he added defensively, "I don't give them those grades, they earn them." He did not invite the headmaster to sit down and join him. He just wanted that annoying man to go away.

“We have a school full of smart kids.” Trumbell said, "They are supposed to be challenged. Your lopsided curve indicates that you are not being as demanding of them as you should, as their parents expect you to be, as I expect you to be. You cannot evaluate them based on what kids do back in the States. Such standards are way too lax for the students we teach."

Hiding his irritation at being told how to do his job, Grant promised to tighten up on his students. The urge for a drink was becoming overwhelming. He resolved to get to a drink as soon as he finished his mysterious but tasty chicken dinner.

The neighborhood surrounding his school was eclectic. Tall high-rise apartments lined the wide avenue Dongxin Lu newly built in anticipation of the arrival of what promised to be China's massive middle class. Although completed, most of the apartments were empty. Behind these apartment buildings was a street he had dubbed "Stinky Street." It was a narrow road surrounded by small two-story buildings with all kinds of shops. Bikes and mopeds moved up and down the road that was too narrow for cars. Vendors who lived and worked in the same old two-story building burned their garbage in tiled structures giving off an odor that brought about the nickname.

Grant liked Stinky Street. There was something authentic about it. Stinky Street had bicycle shops and electronic shops selling cell phones and SIM cards. Vendors offered dumplings and live chickens from makeshift stalls. There were point-and-click restaurants and small grocery stores selling, among other things, beer, wine, and hard liquor.  Grant headed to one of the latter.

*****

Yakub watched the American leave his restaurant as he continued to manipulate pasta in the window. There were lots of foreigners in Hangzhou, but he didn’t know anything about them. Where he came from foreigners were rarely seen, and those that were didn’t stay for long. He had seen that particular American stumbling around on the street on several occasions. The presence of foreigners in Hangzhou gave Yakub a sense of comfort. After all, not being Han Chinese made him something of a foreigner himself. Trouble between the Han and his people was common back home in Ürümqi. But here in Hangzhou, he was left alone to run his restaurant, with good Uyghur food and American Coca-Cola.

Yakub called to his teenage son Ismael to take over the pasta making. The restaurant was empty. He wanted to get on his computer and have a WeChat with his brother Kalihs in Ürümqi before it was time for evening prayers. It would be a conversation void of political commentary since WeChat, like every other form of communication in China, had the potential to be monitored by the government.  Calls to Xinjiang were even more likely to be so scrutinized.

Nevertheless, Yakub marveled at the technology that allowed him to talk to his brother face to face. When he first opened the restaurant, he was able to show it all to his brother with WeChat. His brother, in turn, could show him the old family home he had moved into after their parents had died. It made the 4,000-kilometer distance feel not so far away.

A familiar tone came out of his computer as it called the other machine so far away. His brother's slightly out-of-focus face appeared on the screen.  Even then, Yakub could see that something was bothering him. The two men bowed their heads, touched their hearts, and exchanged the traditional greeting in their Turkic language. "I salute you" was followed by the Chinese "Ni Hao."

 “Yakub, I have bad news today,” Kalihs began. “There was an attack on a police station here in Ürümqi, killing two policemen. We all think it is part of a vendetta by a criminal family. The police are claiming it was a terrorist attack done by the ETIM. They have begun another crackdown on us Uyghurs, sending even more to the re-education camps."

Kalihs had broken the first family rule of WeChat. Avoid anything political. But it was too late to worry about that now.

“Kalihs, you must come and live with us. Sell the old family house for whatever you can. You can work in my restaurant and stay with Ismael and me."

“Yakub, I am not like you. I cannot give up my way of life, the traditions that run so deep in our family just to make money.”

"Just to make money?" Yakub's voice grew louder at the implication of his brother's statement. "I do this to look out for my family and keep them away from the hostility surrounding you now. Come out here and …"

Kalihs' face disappeared from the screen. Was it a disconnect? Had he angered his brother? Or had the call been monitored and then cut off deliberately? He was about to try to reconnect when he saw a customer come into the restaurant through the open doorway. With Ismael busy at the pasta window, Yakub would have to be the waiter.

 The loveliness of this customer struck Yakub. She was Western in all manner of appearance except for a bright red, beautifully embroidered hijab. He had never seen her before.  She sat at a table in the center of the room. When he approached, she looked at Yakub with her dark brown eyes and then surprised him further.

"So, what is good here?" She asked in Turkish. Not his Turkish. Istanbul Turkish. He had heard it enough to know what she was saying. Besides, the two languages are not that vastly different.

“You are Turkish!” Yakub said with delight.

“No. American.” She replied 

“And the hijab?” Yakub asked defensively.

"I am a Muslim. Believe it or not, there are American Muslims," she said. The enchanting smile that started with "So what's good here?" never leaving her face.

"I am the new language teacher at the school, "she continued, her right thumb pointing behind her in the general direction of the international school where Grant taught.

“So again, what do you recommend?”

Yakub recommended the dinner Grant had ordered earlier.

 If one American liked it, then probably another would.

Sally Peyton took out her phone, plugged in her earbuds, and typed in English, Contact.

After dinner, Sally Peyton returned to her apartment and listened to the recording her surveillance equipment had made of the We Chat between Yakub and his brother.

"Well, that was certainly brief." She thought and then ran a series of applications to ensure that the cutoff had not happened because someone had detected her equipment online. Satisfied that all was well, she turned off the computer and got ready for bed. "Hard to say what is the better place for your brother, Yakub. It would be better for both of you if neither of you was in China."

******

Washington, DC.

“Shepard, I need to see you in my office.”

The sound of his boss's voice startled Arthur, who was reading a report from a station chief in Iraq. He jumped out of his chair and followed his boss into a windowless office and closed the door.

"When you were in the field, you had an informant with the code name Trumpet."

"Yes, sir. He died in a single-car accident on some country road in Turkey. It happened about five years ago. The police report left a lot of questions about how it exactly happened. We determined that he was probably compromised and killed either by Al-Quida or the Turkish government. He was a top-flight informant. Why?”

"Well, he has come back from the dead. Either that or someone has all his original codes. Contact was made using those codes and following the proper protocols." the boss said, handing a thick file folder to Shepard. "We need to find out what this is all about. If it is the real Trumpet, what does he want? If it’s not, who is it, and what do they want? Is this the consequence of some computer hack that has compromised our security?"

Shepard felt a knot in his stomach, knowing what was coming next.

“Since you are the only person who has actually seen Trumpet, I need you to make a face-to-face connection with him. The contact we did get from him indicated that he was still in Turkey and that the clandestine methods you and he used to make contact could be applied.

"I've been out of the field for quite a while now." Shepard protested.

 He thought his cloak and dagger life was over. He was happy being a desk jockey.  Working regular hours and going home to his wife Jean at the end of the day was a routine Arthur Shepard could blissfully do until retirement. It was certainly less stressful than running risks in the field.

 

"You'll be fine." His boss replied. "Find him, find what he wants, and come home and tells us all about it." With that, he gave Shepard a look that indicated the discussion was over.

And Shepard did what his boss asked him to do, at least for the most part.

*****

Upon arriving in Istanbul, Shepard took a cab to the tomb of Sultan Mahmud II, the Ottoman leader, most famous for trying to modernize his empire by destroying the dreaded Janissaries. From there, Shepard walked two blocks down Dicen Yolu, past a Burger King to a Starbucks. A tram went down the middle of the street as he turned into a Starbucks.

He ordered a coffee and went to the table where he and Trumpet had met before. And there he was. Alive as ever and hardly changed at all. He had a table next to the window that allowed him to sit with his back to the wall. He was watching the pedestrians and hardly shifted his eyes in acknowledgment that Shepard was approaching.

“You look well for a dead man,” Shepard said in a quiet voice.

"I had to bail that way. I was exposed. It was either that or really die. And I am still dead to most everyone. At least to those who matter.

"

"OK, so what is the contact about?"

“Something is going down involving Uyghurs in China. Something big.” Trumpet said quietly, his eyes darting about the street outside. “I don’t have a lot of answers, but I do have lots of questions, like what do you all want with them?”

Not sure at all what Trumpet was talking about and unwilling to commit, Shepard replied with a question.

“Tell me about the Uyghurs. What have you heard?”

 "Hum," grunted Trumpet taking his eyes off the pedestrians in the street and giving Shepard a suspicious glance. Shepard's non-answer was an answer. The CIA was involved in some way. 

"Well, let me know if you find something to share about this. I might be able to share more with you then. I’ll say this much; I am not the only one arising from death. Someone is resurrecting ETIM.”

“How can you resurrect something that never existed?” Arthur asked.

"You can put up a web page promoting yourself as that something. I don't know if they are real or not, but powerful forces are at play here, and people inside your organization are a part of it."

“A part of what?” Arthur asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Trumpet replied. “You know something, but you are holding back.”

And with that, he stood up, turned, and quickly walked out of the Starbucks. Shepard was about to say something to Trumpet's back, but discretion dictated that he not draw attention to the two of them. As Trumpet mixed in with the people he had been watching and disappeared, Shepard went back to the counter to get another pastry and more coffee. He left twenty minutes later for the airport, where he caught a night flight back to Washington, DC.

The next morning, he reported to his boss on what little he had learned. Someone was planning an operation that involved Uyghurs. He did not mention Trumpet’s suspicions about it being a CIA operation. Having given the briefing he did to Simon Conklin on the elusive and possibly fictitious[SB1] [SB2] [SB3]  ETIM, Shepard had the same misgivings. But he would have to be silent about them. Whatever was going on was way above his pay grade.

*****

Hangzhou

It was Friday, and Richard Grant was looking forward to the weekend. He wanted to start partying as soon as the last class finished. But Headmaster Lawrence Trumbell dashed those hopes when he called a faculty meeting to discuss a crisis with the school's computer system. The school's amateur computer programmers had attempted to design a way to get around some of the controls and restrictions of the Chinese government. They had brought the school's entire system down. Those teachers who had bought into the idea that the new system would work had just lost all their grades. Grant was not one of those teachers.  

But here he was nevertheless in the assembly area, also used as the cafeteria and referred to by the Chinese employees as the "canteen." Teachers' panicky chatter created an air of tension. Sitting apart from the cacophony was the new language teacher, her pale blue hijab matching the rest of her outfit. Now might be a good time to, as the Brits would say, chat her up a bit.

"Hello," he said, "I'm Richard Grant. I believe you are our new language teacher. I hope you are not a victim of our disastrous software," he said with a smile, his hand extended.

Sally Peyton shook his hand and gave him the same smile she had for Yabek.

“Yes, and I believe you are the senior English teacher?” she said. “And no, I haven’t had time yet to get to know the system.”

"It looks like you are not going to have to worry about that now. It appears to have completely collapsed. May I join you?" he asked, pointing to an empty chair next to her.

"Of course," she replied, moving slightly away from the empty chair into which Grant plopped his corpulent body.

The headmaster walked onto the platform in front of the teachers, and the chatter began to die away.

"Would you like to go out for a drink after this? Grant asked, then quickly added, "tea or coffee?"

"Thank you, but I have plans," she replied.

"Some other time, then perhaps," he whispered as the room grew quiet, and Trumbell began to try to explain what he did not understand.

"Perhaps." She lightly touched the side of her head and then looked straight at Trumbell with a concentration that looked to Grant like an effort to ignore him.

Grant paid little attention to the headmaster as he feebly attempted to explain what had happened to all the grades. Did she just brush him off? Maybe it's just an effort to make a good impression on the boss. Maybe she has a boyfriend.  She could be very devout in her faith, in which case he, a lapsed Catholic, would have very little chance with her.  He tried whispering a wisecrack about computer people to see if he could get her to glance his way. Maybe that magnetic smile would return. But he got no response. "Boy," he thought, "she sure looks to be hanging on Trumbell’s every word.”

But she wasn’t. Again Sally touched her ear ever so slightly to increase the volume of the earbuds concealed by her hijab. The live feed from the restaurant had been quiet for most of the day with a few customers chatting in Mandarin, and Yakub barking out orders to his son. But now something was going on. Men, maybe two, were talking in Mandarin, about how they were going to approach Yakub about his brother Kalihs. They were either at or near that center-most table because she could hear them clearly. Then not so clearly. They had moved, no longer in the central area of the restaurant. The backroom?

She began to feel like she had to see what was happening, started thinking of excuses for a sudden departure. But then Headmaster Trumbell said:

"OK, well, that's where things stand now. I won’t hold you any longer. Enjoy the weekend.”

Sally Peyton stood up and abruptly left the canteen, leaving Grant with the clear impression she was trying to get away from him as fast as possible.

*******

Two men, Chinese detectives, were, in fact, in the back room with Yakub. They began by examining his papers, the documents that allowed him, a Uyghur to be where he was, and to operate a business. They were all in order. They then began to ask him about his family. Yakub sensed that these were not intended to be friendly questions and volunteered as little information as possible.

“You didn’t mention your brother,” the larger of the two said.

“What about Kalihs?” Yakub replied.

“Where is he?” the smaller one asked.

“He should be in the home of our ancestors in Ürümqi. Has something happened to him?" Yakub asked with concern. The detectives ignored his question.

"We need you to tell us where he is," the more prodigious detective said. "We can make things very difficult for you if you don't cooperate."

"I spoke with him last night on WeChat from that very place."

He tried again, “What has happened to my brother?”

Again, no answer.

"We can shut this down." the smaller detective said, waving a hand at the restaurant's dining area. "We can shut it down and send you and your family to a re-education center if you do not cooperate."

"But I am happy to cooperate with you. I contacted Kalihs last night. We got cut off, and I have not been able to reach him since then. I just thought there was a problem with WeChat at his end. I can try again if you would like."

The larger detective said nothing but pointed to Yakub’s computer. Yakub sat before it, logged onto WeChat, and selected his brother's number. As the machine made the chime sound, indicating that the recipient was not online, Yakub's anxiety accelerated. What has happened to Kalihs? What is going to happen to us?

 He turned and saw Sally Peyton.  She sat down at the center table and placed her cell phone on the table.

“I have a customer,” he said to the detectives as he charged out of the side room towards Sally. “Please allow me to attend to her.”

When Yakub reached her table, Sally spoke to him in Turkish, and her smile was the same as when she first came to the restaurant.

"Bring me some tea if everything is all right with you, and a Coca-Cola if things are not."

He gave her a confused look, then quickly nodded his head and went towards the kitchen.

The sound of Turkish and the sight of a hajib were enough to bring the Chinese cops to her table. They identified themselves as police and asked for her documentation.

 “Yes sir,” she replied in flawless Mandarin while reaching into her shoulder bag for her passport. “I am a teacher at the International School. My name is Sally Peyton.”

The larger detective took the passport and showed it to his smaller comrade.

“American? “

The smaller man nodded. At that moment Sally’s phone rang. She picked it up and began to speak to no one on the other end in English.

"Oh, hey, I am so glad you called. Some Chinese policemen are questioning me. No, I didn’t do anything wrong. Should I call the embassy? Maybe if you don't hear from me in an hour, you might need to call the embassy."

She continued her fake conversation, watching for a reaction from the cops. The smaller either knew English or the word embassy because a look of concern appeared on his face every time she used it. When Yakub returned with her Coca-Cola, she hung up and put the cell phone back on the table.

“May I see a menu?” she asked Yakub in Mandarin as though the two policemen were not even in the room.

The smaller nudged, the larger detective, and nodded towards the door. Just as she figured, that guy did not want to find himself in the center of an international complaint. But the two detectives lingered by the restaurant door watching Sally and Yakub, so she ordered a pasta dinner. With her smile still in place, she held up her glass of Coca-Cola and said to Yakub in Turkish:

“We will talk later.”

Frightened by the police, concerned over the apparent disappearance of his brother, and confused by this extraordinary woman, Yakub merely nodded and went to get the pasta dinner.

*****

Smoking was not allowed on the international school campus, so by the end of every school day, Grant's nicotine addiction demanded he get out where he could light up. This Friday was only different because the surprise faculty meeting had delayed him from getting his afternoon fix.  From his position at a public ashtray/trash can, he could see down Dongxin Lu, a broad valley of a road surrounded by high-rises.  Looking Down Xinhe Lu, he could see the small shops and point-and-click restaurants, including Yakub's. 

Just as it had caught Yakub's eye, the pale blue of Sally Peyton's hijab caught Grant's eye. He could see her through the restaurant window. Two Chinese men were standing at the table where she sat. One handed her something, and she put it in her shoulder bag. "She had plans with these two guys?" He thought. He lit another cigarette and continued to watch.

It looked like she was on the phone. Then the two men walked out, but she didn’t. They stood around, like him, smoking cigarettes and watching the restaurant while the elusive Sally Peyton dined on pasta. When he realized the two Chinese guys had stopped watching the restaurant and had started to watch him, he decided it was time to leave and find a drink.

As she ate, Sally Peyton casually picked up the phone and deactivated the cameras. That activated a compression process and automatically sent the video file off to RVA240, removing all trace of the data from her phone.

She noticed the two detectives were still hanging around outside; however, they appeared to be distracted. It was too risky to talk to Yakub. She could see him in the side room and hear the chimes of the WeChat -the call was not being answered. Yakub was frantically redialing his brother's number. She put the money for the dinner on the table and left without saying a word.

 The two Chinese detectives caught by her sudden appearance in the doorway did not attempt to conceal themselves. "I wonder what distracted them." she thought. "Are they watching Yakub or me?" She decided she would do what she liked to call "a walkabout" to answer that question.

First, she took a cab to a western bar near West Lake. She had heard it was a favorite Friday night spot for teachers from the international school. As her taxi headed towards the Zhonghe Bridge, she watched the detectives through the cab's rearview mirrors. The light was fading, but from what she could see, they were not scrambling to follow her.

She spent two hours at the western bar chatting with various people from the school. Trumbel took up most of her time telling her the history of his career, which sometimes sounded bogus. She managed to escape him and join a couple of female math teachers who lamented about the lack of romantic possibilities given their present circumstances. Bored with all that, Sally found a Mandarin teacher with whom she enjoyed practicing the language. All the while, her eyes moved about the bar and out onto the street. She saw no sign of the two detectives. 

Continuing the walkabout, she left the bar and walked along the shore of West Lake. It was a very open place, and she stopped, turned around, and doubled back several times along her walk. Still no sign of the detectives. Finally, she caught a bus back to the Binjiang district and got off half a mile away from her apartment. On her way, she saw two shadowy figures on a side street but couldn’t say they were the detectives. "If they have been following me all this time," she thought, "they must be damn good.”

"It's time to Skype Papa," she said aloud to her empty apartment. The popular video conferencing software gave out its distinct sound. The voice and video image of her father appeared on the screen, "Hello Papa." She said in a cheerful voice." Did you have fun with your friends today?"

"Oh, not so much fun," her father replied." They were not up for shuffleboard, and all they wanted to do was play chess."

"I'm sorry, Papa.

"How about you?" He asked. How was your day."

"Well, I was questioned by the Chinese police, so that was exciting," she said. "I don't think it had anything to do with me, though. They seemed to be looking for someone or something." I read the story of Qabil and Habil in Latin to my students today. It didn’t go over as well as I had hoped. “

" Well, all you can do is try." Her Papa responded.

“Papa it is late, and I am going to go to bed. I just wanted to check in on you. “

"Sure, kiddo. Love you. Bye."

Her father disappeared off the screen.

She began to decode what her father said as she got ready for bed. He did make contact with the CIA, but they did not want to share information. Playing chess meant controlling pieces. They could be the ones that are running this op that appears to already be in motion. Maybe Papa can get some leads about the two Chinese detectives from the video her cell phone had sent him.

Trumpet clicked off Skype and decoded what his daughter had just said. Qabil and Habil are Cain and Abel, so the Uyghur had a brother, and something was going on with him. He clicked on to the icon labeled RVA240. It indicated that there was new input. Trumpet moved through the videos until he came across the images of the two detectives. His eyes widened as they scanned over the faces. Once he was sure of what he saw, he picked up the phone and made a reservation for the next flight to Beijing.

****

Richard Grant wasn’t at the western watering hole Sally went to during her after-dinner walkabout. He already knew that Friday nights there included the tiresome headmaster and the two women she encountered, neither of whom wanted to have anything to do with him.  Instead, Grant went to a Chinese bar where he knew they would understand him when he ordered Jack Daniels. It was one of those moments when he felt Jack was his only reliable friend.

What was it he saw in the Uyghur restaurant? Who were those guys with Sally Peyton, and why did they hang around outside? Were they the people she had plans with for the evening? If so, why didn’t she leave with them? Were they cops? Chinese cops aren’t likely to harass westerners unless they are breaking the law. At least that had been his experience so far. Were they there to harass the restaurant owner and decided that she must be one of them since she was Muslim? Is she one of them? She certainly didn’t look like a Uyghur.

He felt bad. He should have had the guts to walk into that restaurant and confront Sally Peyton about her "other plans." He might have turned into a hero, rescuing her from these two Chinese guys. He wondered what happened after he left. Did they follow her after she left the Uyghur restaurant? His regret changed to fear when he thought about how the two men had suddenly started to take an interest in him. Maybe it was better to have done what he did. Flee. He ordered more Jack.

It was early for a Friday night when he left the bar and made his way back to his apartment. Stretching out supine on his couch, he reached for the remote and turned on his TV, always set on the only channel he could get in English, the BBC.

"In other news tonight," the anchorwoman said in her crisp British accent, "plans are underway for the American President's first visit to China since the two countries' trade war began two months ago. Both countries are feeling the economic impact of the punishing tariffs.  The hope is that his meeting will be a step in the right direction towards ending the standoff. Next up; sports."

 BBC sports didn’t include American college football. After a few minutes of soccer news, Grant got up and walked out onto his patio for a cigarette. Down on the street below, passing underneath the glow of a streetlight, he saw the light blue scarf as Sally Peyton moved quickly towards her apartment. "So," he thought, "Miss Sally Peyton returns from her night of other plans. And what of those two guys. Is that them I see in that alley behind her?"

****

Dabancheng

Southeast of Ürümqi, the urban center of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is an area known as Dabancheng. It is an isolated region in China with a small town of the same name serving as the region's capital. At the foot of a range of hills, ashen grey and void of foliage, is a compound constructed by the Chinese government for incarcerating Uyghur men. Inside are barracks, where Uyghur men are locked up. Early in the morning, they are awakened and forced out onto an exercise yard to run. Those who are late for the exercise or do not run fast enough are beaten with batons. The exercise yard is surrounded by tall walls, topped with razor wire and include guard towers. After breakfast, the inmates begin their "re-education" program for the day, subjected to long lectures on the Chinese Communist Party's glories and the wickedness of adhering to Muslim culture.  Uyghurs in the camp are not allowed to speak their Turkic language or pray. They are allowed no contact with the outside world and incarcerated for an indeterminate amount of time. They all must wear the same blue coveralls.

It was in this world that Yakub’s brother Kalihs now found himself. Three men slipped into his house during his WeChat to Yakub and attacked him from behind.  He was rendered unconscious by a blow to the head. When he awoke to find his home ransacked, his computer smashed, and his identity papers gone. 

His mistake was to go to the police and report the crime. He had given all the information to a low-level office. Then, to his surprise, he was confined in an interrogation room and "interviewed" by Huai Jingchan, the Chief of Police.

 “My name is Kalihs Almas. I live at…”

"Yes, yes," the Chief said from behind a simple wooden desk. "We have all this. But you see without your papers we have no idea who you really are. You could be an outside extremist working to foment rebellion among the Muslims in our population. Maybe you are with al-Qaeda or ETIM. We have evidence that they are still around and maybe making a comeback."

“But I have lived here in Ürümqi my whole life! I have never committed a crime, and I have nothing to do with al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group.  Kalihs replied. “I don’t even know what ETIM is! My home was robbed. That is why I came to you.”

“Yes, the first thing all Uyghurs do is deny ETIM.” Kalihs Almas, if that is who you really are, you are going to be staying with us for a while. It will be good for you. We are teaching you Muslims how to be good Chinese.”

Two police officers pulled Kalihs out of the room and loaded him onto a bus with other Uyghurs. They would soon be among the more than one million people detained by the Chinese government. Kalihs was placed in the newly build re-education compound in Dabancheng.  Only a series of numbers identified him and his fellow inmates.

Chief of Police Huai Jingchan got up from behind the interrogation desk and returned to his office. He took the file on Kalihs, put it in his cabinet, and said into the open drawer: "We will give you your identity back Kalihs Almas when the time is right. Then you will wish you never had that name." He closed and locked the filing cabinet before returning to his desk. 

****

Washington, DC.

Around a conference table on the tenth floor of an obscure hotel sat Simon Conklin, the Assistant to the Director of the CIA, Alben Hobart, the vice president, and Colin Hale, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They had all used only their most trusted assistants to help them get to this meeting out of the eyes of not only the public and the press, but the very government they served. The hotel owner, a close friend of the Chairman, had arranged for his staff to be elsewhere in the hotel when these men arrived at the conference room.

"We have an agent in place." The Assistant Director, Conklin, said. "He has all the papers he needs to identify himself as a Uyghur. We have set up a dark website to promote ETIM's existence, and we are linking his identity information to it.  The web site presents him as a Uyghur extremist on the internet. He has easy access to the right location. Our allies in the Chinese government have been smoothing the way for this to succeed."

“It’s odd calling those people allies.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said.

"In this case, they are." Vice President Hobart responded. "They, like us, know the President is stark raving mad and a true danger to the whole world. Like us, they know that politics being what it is in this country he can't be removed. For the good of humanity, he must be killed."

“Yes.” Said Chairman Hale. “And I’m sure you are looking forward to taking his place.”

The Vice President ignored the remark and turned towards the Conklin.

“And what about your boss?”

"As far as I know, he is still clueless about this cabal. But one whiff of it and he would rat us out to the president who could then have us arrested for treason. The Director's loyalty to this president by far and away exceeds his loyalty to the county."

"Getting back to your comment about allies," Conklin continued. "the murder of a foreign head of state on their soil will shame them. They are willing to take on this appearance of national shame to justify the annihilation or incarceration of the rest of the Uyghur population. It is what they want in order to continue with their One Belt One Road plans. We are allies with them in this venture. What happens after that will be up to you." he said, turning towards the Vice President.

"Once in office, I'll be ready to move on improving relations with China.  Until then, there is not much more the rest of us can do but wait and watch. Too much preparation could trigger suspicion. By the way, if any of you are planning a big short play on the market, be sure to cover your tracks. The media and other investigators will be looking for that sort of thing right off the bat. Use untraceable offshore accounts for sure."

There were smiles all around the table.

***

Beijing

The exterior of the Starbucks on Slougu Alley blends perfectly with the Hutong buildings in Beijing's Dongcheng District, grey with a look made famous during the Yuan Dynasty. It has no windows facing the alley, and passersby cannot see who is in the restaurant without going inside. Trumpet got a coffee and then took a seat in front of a small circular table at the far end of the restaurant, his back to a wall. 

A minute later, the big Chinese detective who had questioned Sally Peyton in Hangzhou entered the Starbuck and ordered tea at the counter. He then proceeded to sit in the remaining chair at Trumpets table, his back not to any wall.

“So, Trumpet,” he said after taking a sip of his tea. “What brings you to my city?”

“You.” Trumpet replied. “Some intelligence has come my way about you and a certain Uyghur in Hangzhou, and my clients want to know why you are so interested in this man.”

"You are referring to Yakub Almas," Who are your clients? CIA?"

“No, not this time. Let’s just say they are concerned Turkic people?" 

“Ankara?”

"Since I cannot tell you, guessing is pointless. But I may be helpful to you in other ways. Tell me what is going on, my friend."

"This will have to be, as you like to say, a tit for tat conversation." The Chinese detective replied. "Your former clients are up to something, and it involves Yakub Almas' brother. What do you know about that?"

Trumpet told him what little he knew.

The Chinese detective kept his eyes on his cup of tea, which he held in both hands close to his face, occasionally bringing it to his mouth for a sip.

“There is, on the dark web,” the Chinese detective began, “a new site claiming to be ETIM. It is full of a lot of violent rhetoric written in the Uyghur language and promising insurrection in Xinjiang. Kalihs Almas is one of the most frequent contributors. When police went to arrest him at his home in Ürümqi, they found it ransacked, and he was gone. I was trying to find him through his brother."

“And have you found him?”

"No." But based on the intelligence I have gathered, I am convinced he has been assigned by ETIM or someone to commit a serious crime in my country. It is difficult for me because very powerful friends in my government are helping him ." 

"What is it he supposed to do?" Trumpet asked.

The Chinese detective put his cup of tea down and looked Trumpet in the eyes for the first time since their conversation began.

“To kill the American president when he comes to China.”

Trumpet let that bit of news sink in. While this did help to connect a few dots, questions in his head remained. Who would create such a conspiracy? Certainly not the ETIM if they even exist. More like someone who wanted them destroyed, or Uyghur civilization destroyed. That would explain participation by Chinese government higher-ups, but who got this ball rolling?

He would not ask the Chinese detective anything more now. The latter put his teacup down and stood up to leave.

“By the way.” the Chinese detective said with a smile. “Your daughter is a beautiful young woman, and apparently a very smooth operative. You are lucky to have her on your team.”

"Let me know if you want me to put her on your team. She will stay in China for a while."

"I may have to take you up on that. "The Chinese detective bowed his head ever so slightly, "Xièxiè."

Trumpet nodded his head in silence and watched as his friend departed. He so admired the man. Here he was ready to risk his career in pursuit of a criminal conspiracy that, in all probability, involved people at the highest level of the Chinese government. That he knew Sally Peyton was Trumpet's daughter was a testament to his intuitive powers for Trumpet, and Sally had covered their tracks well. The Chinese detective had seen Sally only once before, and that was when she was a little girl.

Trumpet ordered pastry and coffee. Twenty minutes later, he was in a cab on his way back to the airport to exchange his return trip ticket to Istanbul for a flight to Washington, DC.

 

*****

Hangzhou

Sally sat at her favorite table in Yakub's restaurant, the one positioned in the center where she could see everything, including the little room off to the side. It was the table where she had earlier planted her bug, which she removed as the first order of business. Now she sat sipping a Coca-Cola as Yakub stood by her table like he was waiting to take her order. It had been two weeks since the Chinese police incident at the restaurant, and they had not been back. It was as good a time as any to talk.

"I think your brother is being set up," she said. "Have you been able to contact him?" Having her listening device in the restaurant, she already knew the answer.

He shook his head no. “What do you know of such things?” He asked her.

"This I can share with you later. For now, you must trust me when I say I am more than a schoolteacher." She had continued to work on her Uyghur Turkish, and Yakub could not help but be impressed with her command of his language. What choice did he have but to trust her?

"I work for some Turkic people who are concerned about your brother." She continued. "At this point, that is all I can say. Was your brother politically active?"

"No. Kalihs supports independence for our people but keeps such thought to himself, sharing them only within the family, and even then, rarely. It is dangerous for Uyghurs to talk about such things."

"Yes," she acknowledged. "Kalihs' name has been appearing on a web site that claims to be the voice of ETIM. It describes him as one of their leading advocates."

“He is no such thing!” exclaimed Yakub. Where is this web site?  I want to see it.”

“It is on the dark web. You cannot access it here in China.”

“And yet you can?” he said with suspicion coming back into his voice.

"No, but those friends I told you about are not in China. They have seen it and told me about it. I believe someone is pulling your brother into some kind of conspiracy, maybe as a patsy."

 “Here,” she said as she reached into her shoulder bag, “this is some of what is being written on the dark web in his name.”

She handed him two sheets of paper full of Turkish script. Yakub read the lines his brow deeply furrowed.

“This is not him! Kalihs could not possibly write like this. He has a primitive education. He would never use such sophisticated language. I doubt that he would even know what most of this means. Besides, it is way too violent and extreme. My brother never talked about autonomy for our people in such terms. I promise you; my brother is not such a person!"

“It is interesting that no picture accompanied his proclamations. “Sally said.

At that moment, Richard Grant walked into the restaurant and went straight to Sally's table.

"Well, well, well, its Sally Peyton! Can I join you?"

And not waiting for an answer, he sat down on the empty chair across from Sally. He waved Yakub away, saying," I'll order something in a bit." Yakub retired to the kitchen to see how the meals for the evening dinner hour were progressing. He had a strong feeling that the conversation he was having with Sally was over for now.

Turning to Sally Grant said:

"It looks to me like you two were engaged in a serious conversation. By the way, where are those two other fellows that were here the last time I saw you in this place?"

It was evident to Sally he had been drinking.

"I have no idea who you are talking about." She said. "Lots of people come to this place, and I have been here with other people on many occasions. As far as my conversation with the proprietor, he is from Xinjiang, and I plan to travel to his homeland."

“Wow! A trip to the far regions of western China. Actually, I have been thinking of taking such a trip myself. I checked it out on Kayak. It's about a five-hour trip from here to Ürümqi, and China Southern has some non-stop flights.  When are you planning to go?"

"Maybe during the Christmas break," Sally replied. "I'm sure you will be heading back to the States for that holiday. Obviously, it is not a big holiday for me, and I am happy to spend such breaks exploring more of China."

She glanced at Yakub, who had moved to the front window by this time, where he was working the dough to make the noodles. He shot her a nervous glance back.

"Oh, I don't know." Said Grant sensing an opportunity. "I'm not keen on heading 'home for the holidays.'", his hands made air quotes as he spoke that familiar phrase. It’s such a long haul, and the jet lag from going west to east beats me up something awful. Let me know if you go through with it. Always better to have a traveling companion, especially when you are going into questionable territory, right?"

"We will see. It's just an idea right now." She said, putting her smile back on, which had not been present since Grant's intrusion.

“So, where all have you been in China so far?” Grant asked.

It was apparent to Sally that Grant wasn’t leaving anytime soon. She motioned to Yakub, who put down the pasta dough, wiped his hands on his apron, and headed toward the table. Without answering Grant's question, she turned to him and said:

“I am going to order my dinner now. Are you planning to eat here too?”

“Sure. I’ll have that chicken dinner I had here the last time. "And," Grant pointed to Sally's Coca-Cola, "one of those I guess."

To Yakub, Sally said in Turkish:

"He does not appear to be leaving. I am going to order two chicken dinners, one for him and one for me. I believe what you told me about your brother. I do not think he is what the dark web says he is. My people will continue to look for him, and I will be back in contact with you. Be of a brave heart. "

The two Americans continued to talk through dinner. Grant tried to contain his excitement at having this chance with Sally. He talked despairingly of the headmaster, the food in the canteen and other minutiae. Sally kept up a front with the conversation while trying to figure out her next move.

She would inform Trumbell that she would need two days off from school ahead of the weekend. That would give her a four-day opening. She would tell him that a conference of Muslim women was meeting in Shanghai. It was not something he would challenge for fear of stepping over a line of political correctness.  Once she had her lesson plans in order, she would take a bullet train to Shanghai, covering about 112 miles in about 40 minutes. From there, it would be the cross-town subway to the airport. Not to catch a flight to Ürümqi but Istanbul. It was time for a face to face meeting with her Papa.

"So, Grant asked, "are you OK with me traveling with you to Ürümqi over Christmas?”

“We’ll see.” She replied. If she was going to have to travel into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, he might be useful.

Back in her apartment, Sally sent her nightly report to Trumpet, complete with the information on when she would arrive in Istanbul.

***

Fairfax, Virginia

The Virginia climate is remarkably similar to that of Zhejiang Province, China. The air that greeted Sally and Grant as they left the restaurant and returned to their respective apartments was like the cool air that greeted Arthur Shepard as he walked down the driveway of his suburban Fairfax County home to check his mail. It had been weeks since he had talked to Trumpet and now and then he would reflect on that meeting he had with his friend from Istanbul. He didn’t learn much from the meeting, but the mere fact that Trumpet had come out of hiding and made contact was significant. The topic of conversation had centered around a group of people the Assistant to the Director had made inquiries about for the first time, made it all the more significant. As Shepard grabbed the pile of bills and promotional material from his mailbox, he heard a metallic clanking sound. Putting his hand back in the box, he found a small toy brass trumpet. 

Quickly he looked around for an anomaly in the neighborhood he knew very well. And there it was, a dark green car, parked on the other side of a street that intersected with his own. It was not a neighborhood car and looked like a rental. He went back into his house, casually tossing the toy trumpet in the air as he walked. He grabbed his car keys from a small table in the vestibule, and as he headed toward the garage, he said in a voice loud enough for his wife to hear from the kitchen:

“Jean, I need to go out for a bit. I won’t be too long. It's work-related."

His wife, who preferred not to ask about anything work-related, replied simply

.

"OK."

Backing his car down the driveway, he glanced at the dark green vehicle and noticed a small puff of blue smoke coming out of its tailpipe. As he made his way towards Interstate 66, he checked his rearview mirror. The driver of the dark green car was following him and making no effort to conceal that fact.

Shepard merged into the traffic heading west on I66 to route 29, which took him to the Manassas Battlefield Park. Once in the park, he headed for Henry House Hill and parked in the lot in front of the visitor's center. From there, Shepard walked across an open field to the equestrian statue of Stonewall Jackson. He could see the dark green car pull into the lot. There were no other cars behind it. Trumpet got out of the car, stopped and appeared to read an information sign about the First Battle of Bull Run, and then made his way to the Jackson statue.

"He was an interesting character in your country's history." Trumpet said, pointing to the statue.

"That was an odd way for you to contact me," Shepard said without concealing his irritation. Protocols exist for a reason, and throughout his career, Shepard had always been big on protocol. Trumpet had just broken it.

"This visit is strictly between you and me." Trumpet said. "Using our normal protocols for contact involved other people in your agency, and with what I have to tell you, you are the only one I can trust."

He turned his back on the statue and let his eyes sweep the open field.

"There is a conspiracy involving a Uyghur and the ETIM. Rogue elements within your agency are orchestrating it. It is a plan to kill your president when he visits China next month."

 "People have been thinking we plot to kill our presidents ever since the Kennedy assassination. Believe me. It's not something we do." Shepard said, shaking his head. "Besides, we have never had evidence that ETIM even exists."

"There is a site on the dark web claiming to be ETIM and a lot of violent rhetoric coming out of it from one Uyghur who I know is not a radical. "Trumpet continued. "I think it is a set up to make this Uyghur a  patsy, you know, like the way Lee Harvey Oswald was set up."

"Please tell me you didn't set up this meeting to talk about Kennedy conspiracy theories," Shepard responded, his irritation starting to turn into anger. "I appreciate your concern, but this could have gone through regular channels. We simply do not kill American presidents. Any Americans for that matter."

"Sure," replied Trumpet stretching the word out with a heavy tone of sarcasm. "Listen, I didn't schlep all the way over to this side of the world because I have nothing better to do. I am sharing this with you as a friend. He’s not my president, thank God. The information is good. Do what you want with it."

There is a reason why guys like Trumpet prevail in a life so fraught with peril. It is like they intuitively know when they are in danger. Out of the corner of his eye, Trumpet saw a glint of light from a tree line a hundred or more yards away. Most people would not have noticed it, but Trumpet instantly turned towards Shepard and pushed him to the ground. There was the report of a rifle, and a bullet whizzed by the two men.

“Trumpet!” Shepard yelled. “What the have you gotten me into?”

"It's got to be your people, my friend," said Trumpet, still prone on the ground next to Shepard. 'No one else could have gotten the drop on us like this. No one else would have been motivated to do so."

It was a point Shepard had to accept. They lay there on the ground in silence for a moment.

“I don’t think he will take another shot.” Said Trumpet. He glanced over at the visitor’s center.  People who had been milling around the parking lot were also lying flat on the ground. Some had already pulled out their cell phones.

“The police will be here soon.” Said Shepard.

“Good. I have faith in my cover story. Right now, I welcome your boys in blue.” Trumpet replied with a smile.

Shepard said nothing about the shooting incident to either his wife when he got home, or to anyone at work when he arrived at his office the next morning. For a moment, he stared at his computer screen with the government logo. Anyone walking by his desk could be wanting him dead, or wanting Trumpet dead. Or both. Could such a conspiracy as described out on the old Civil War battlefield be happening? He would have doubted it from anyone other than Trumpet. For years he had relied on Trumpet's information, and it had never been inaccurate or given to exaggeration. If it were so, he thought it had to be people way up the food chain, like the agency director or the assistant.

Finally, Shepard clicked on his mouse and brought his computer to life. First, he tried to check out the ETIM web site and get as much information as he could about it. He didn’t get far. Almost immediately, an agency generated message appeared telling him he was not authorized. He backed out and tried a different approach, but the message appeared again. He was about to pick up his office phone and call for technical support when he heard his boss call out his name. Looking up, he saw his boss wave him into his office. Shepard complied, closing the door behind him.

“Listen, Shepard. I need to send you on a mission. Our friends in Australia need some expertise in your area. It’s some special investigation into Muslim extremists in their country.” I need you to go down there for a couple of weeks and give them a hand.”

"Their extremists are homegrown," said Shepard. "My counterpart down there, Jay Smith said they had it all pretty well in hand."

"Well, things have changed." The boss replied sternly. Seeing the look of resistance on Shepard's face, he added: "This comes from higher up and is not optional."

Shepard nodded in submission. The boss walked over to Shepard and handed him airplane tickets.

"Your flight leaves tonight, so you need to go home and get yourself packed and ready to go. Look at it this way; they are moving into warmer weather in the land down under. You might get out to Bondi Beach for a bit."

"The ASIS is headquartered in Canberra," Shepard said. And then to break the tension said with a forced smile;

 “But who knows. I might get over to Sydney. Before I go though, I need to report that I am having computer issues this morning.”

“Don’t worry about that now. We’ll have it all fixed up for you when you get back.”

“Hum,” thought Shepard. Maybe this conspiracy isn’t that far up the food chain after all. He returned to his desk, logged out, grabbed his briefcase, and headed for home.

"Australia?" Jean asked when he told her. "You've never gone terrorist hunting there before." She was standing in the doorway to their bedroom, watching him fold clothes and put them in a suitcase.

“I am on loan to the Ozzy spy outfit for a couple of weeks.”

"For someone who has a desk job, you sure are moving around a lot lately."

“Yeah, a lot has been happening lately.” Turning to her with his no-more-questions look.

“I know, I know.” She said. And with that, she walked away.

"A lot indeed." He thought as he continued to pack. An assignment to Australia that was vague lent credibility to his thinking that the bullet fired in Manassas Battlefield Park was for him. Having failed at getting rid of him that way, the conspirators in the agency had found another way. Send him on a bogus assignment to the far ends of the earth.

Several hours later, his plane crossed the International dateline, and some seven hours after that landed in Canberra. Jay Smith was there to greet him.

"Good to see you again, Shepard. I think the last time we worked together was in Seoul."

"Yes," agreed Shepard. "That was an adventure, wasn't it."

They continued with small talk until they were inside Smith's car, which Shepard, forgetting for a moment where he was, had approached from the wrong side.

“So, Jay, what’s this all about?”

"Above my pay grade, mate. I know I am your contact guy for the next couple of weeks, but I don't know anything more than that. There should be a briefing for you when we get to HQ."

And there was. Shepard felt it was a bit put on. There were presentations about various extremist groups operating in Asia, all of whom he was familiar with and none of whom he saw as direct threats against Australia. Yes, they did have assignments for him, but nothing sounded imminent or, for that matter, exclusive to his expertise. Towards the end of the briefing, Shepard decided to create an agenda of his own.

“What about ETIM?” What have you all picked up on them?”

His question had the various faces in the room turn and look at each other with blank expressions.

"Nothing on them, I'm afraid." Said the lead presenter. "Haven't heard that name in years. Are we even sure they exist?"

"Well, they have a site on the dark web. It just went up a few days ago. Some pretty extreme stuff is coming out of it, but I haven’t been able to get a fix on the site’s location. Perhaps it is something we can work on while I am here.”

The faces looked back and forth at each other again, this time with puzzlement.

“Yes, I suppose you and Jay can work on that if there is time.”

It was time, Shepard thought to himself to turn the tables on these conspirators. “Ozzies" he almost said out loud, "You all are going to help me save the President of the United States' life. "

****

Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region

About the time Sally Peyton's plane left Shanghai Pudong Airport on its way to Istanbul, the Chinese detective who met Trumpet in the Starbucks boarded a plane for Urumqi. Like Sally, he had given his superiors a phony story to cover the fact that he was investigating something he no longer had the authority to investigate. Once settled in his seat, he opened a copy of China Daily in which he had placed copies of the police intelligence report of Kalihs Almas.  Officially it was a dead case. The detective that had accompanied him to Yakubs’ restaurant, a local Hangzhou officer, had been reassigned.

The Chinese detective who went by the moniker Rocky was a big guy, well over six feet and close to three hundred pounds, most of which was muscle. During his time in the People's Liberation Army, Rocky had distinguished himself in Sanshou, the Chinses art of kickboxing. He was more of a boxer than a kicker, and his favorite American movies were Sylvester Stallone's Rocky movies. Whenever one became available to watch on television, Rocky would invite all his comrades to watch it with him. He especially enjoyed Rocky IV when the American and the Russian boxers pounded on each other. His comrades began to call him Rocky, and he took this as a compliment, especially when he was in the ring, and they would all start chanting the name.

It is not uncommon for Chinese people to adopt an English name, especially those in frequent contact with westerners. It makes it easier for those "barbarians" who cannot master Mandarin. For the Chinese detective, Rocky was his western name. It was how Trumpet knew him.

Rocky had managed to make the copies secretly, but until this moment had not read the report. A small picture of Kalihs stared at him from the right corner of the first page. He would look at the black and white grainy image several times during the flight, embedding it n his memory. Should he encounter Kalihs, he would be able to recognize him right away. He read the text of the report, but it yielded nothing he did not already know.

His plane arrived at Diwopu International airport, and he was surprised to see such a modern terminal.  After securing his small overnight bag, he walked into the airport to store it in a locker and inquire about the bus services. He could not help but smile and shake his head as he walked past a Disney store in the main terminal.

"Damn Americans." He said, almost out loud. "Their culture infects all parts of China. Even way out here!"

A bus took him close to Kalihs' neighborhood. After a brief consultation with a paper map, he started walking in the direction of Kalih’s home. He had thought a lot about how he would approach this private investigation of his. To reveal himself as a policeman would cower the Uyghur’s into silence. He deliberately dressed in unprofessional clothing, giving an image of a common working man. Even with that, he knew he would be lucky to get anything out of the people living around Kalihs. He didn’t speak their Turkic language, and his only hope was that people would open up to him in Mandarin. That wasn’t likely, but for now, that was the plan. As he approached the neighborhood, these thoughts crowded around him, and for a brief moment, he was awash with anxiety. He had risked a lot for what could turn out to be a fool’s errand.

He discovered that Kalihs neighborhood was a fenced-in area. Not an area fenced in to protect the inhabitants from the criminal behavior of outsiders. It was fenced to maintain control over the inhabitants inside, the same way the Nazis of World War II Germany fenced-in Jewish neighborhoods.

 He signed in at the gate and surrendered his civilian identity card. His police badge stayed in his pocket.  He said nothing to guard about his mission, and since his papers did not indicate he was Uyghur, the man did not care.

Rocky found Kalihs' house boarded up. He walked past it as if disinterested and began knocking on doors. The early results were what Rocky had expected. Some made gestures to indicate that they didn’t understand what he was saying. Others just shook their heads and then slowly and carefully as if afraid to offend a Han, closed their doors. He covered both sides of the street where Kalihs lived and the row of houses directly behind it to no avail.

He was just about to change his tactics and go back over the same route; this time with his badge in hand and his gruff cop attitude to see if he could intimidate some information from these people when he noticed a young man wearing a white taqiyah approaching him.

“Are you the man who was asking about Kalihs Almas?” He asked in clumsy Mandarin.

“Yes,” Rocky replied. “Is there something you can tell me about him?”

"His house was broken into, and his identity papers were stolen. He went to report this to the police, and that is the last we saw of him. It is dangerous for us to talk to the police, but what choice did he have? It is a crime not to have identity papers. "

“Did you see who broke into his house?” Rocky asked.

"No, my grandmother did. She is old, though, and can get things mixed up."

“I would like to talk to her.”

“Why?”

Rocky had a cover story. He told the young man he was a journalist secretly working for a foreign news agency that was doing a story on how Uyghurs were disappearing in China. It opened the young Uyghur up.

"Come, I'll take you to my grandmother." The young man said after he had bent Rocky's ear about police mistreatment of Uyghurs for about five minutes. "She doesn't speak Mandarin."

“That’s alright. You can translate for me.”

Assuming the old lady was not as far into her dotage as her grandson implied, there could be some useful information after all. At least more than he had so far.

As the young Uyghur translated, the old lady described how she had seen three men enter Kalihs' home, and she was pretty sure Kalihs was home at the time. Two were Han, and one was a westerner. They came in the house through a door in the back opened onto an alley. After some time, they left in a hurry.

“Out the same way they came in?” the detective asked.

She nodded at her grandson’s translation.

“And Kalihs was not with them?”

She held up three fingers.

"She says three went in and three came out. They got in a car, you know, like a government car."

"Tell her thank you," Rocky said. He turned to leave, but the young man followed behind him.

“We helped you. Now you must help us. We must get out of here. We are fenced in like prisoners. We have to report our coming and going to that guard at the gate. Kalihs is not the only Uyghur to just suddenly disappear! I very well could be next.”

"The only way I can help is to find your friend and tell his story. " Rocky said, keeping his journalist act going. And to discourage any further discussion, he turned quickly on his heel and headed straight for Kalihs’ house. “Do not follow me.” He said over his shoulder. “You could be arrested if you are with me when I do what I am about to do.”

The young man stopped and watched in silence as Rocky headed toward the alley behind Kalihs’ house.

The house did indeed have a small back door opening onto the alley. He looked in the direction of the old lady's house. It was apparent that she could have seen people coming and going through that door from one of the windows of her home. He tested the door and found it was locked. After looking up and down the alley again to be sure no one was looking, he took out his lock picking tools, and in a matter of seconds, the door was open, and he was inside.

The ransacked interior was consistent with a search for something specific. There were items of value scattered about on the floor, items a burglar would have stuffed into his pocket easily.  Same with the bed, covered with a blanket of colorful patterns. Items of value appeared to have been tossed on it as the intruders searched for something specific. They were after Kalihs’ identity papers right from the start.

 A badly damaged computer sat on the table in the dining room where a dinner partner would typically sit.    It was consistent with the file report that Kalihs lived alone. Kalihs would have been sitting in front of the machine the night he was talking to his brother. From that position, he would not have seen the intruders come up behind him. It all fit. The intruders, two operatives from the Chinese secret service, and a westerner, probably contracted by the CIA, had stolen Kalihs identity not by hacking into his computer and lifting his data, but by breaking into his house and stealing his actual papers. Then he was arrested for not having his identity papers when he reported the crime.

The light in the room changed slightly, enough for Rocky to realize that he was no longer alone in the house. He remained motionless and reached into his pocket.

Two policemen in their dark blue uniforms entered with guns drawn.

“Put your hands up and tell us your business here,”

Rocky put his hands up as far as his chest, his right hand clutching his badge so the policemen could see it.  Seriously outranked their guns quickly went back into their holsters, and the uniformed policemen bowed their heads.

“I need to talk to your boss.” The Rocky said with a voice of authority.

They took Rockey to police headquarters in a car of the same model the old Uyghur lady had described earlier. The outside of the police station showed signs of damage from the attack Kalihs had mentioned in his last WeChat conversation with his brother. The inside was bright with white walls and communist party slogans in red Chinese characters. Rocky couldn’t help but notice they used the same model of Dell computers used in his office. His escorts took Rocky into the office of the precinct's chief of police Huai Jingchan, the same man who had put Kalihs in the re-education camp. The first thing Huai Jingchan asked of Rocky was to see his badge.  He took the badge and held onto it while Rocky talked.

Rocky began his explanation for breaking into Kalihs’ house by indicating that Kalihs was a criminal, wanted back in Beijing. He added an element of truth by saying that Kalihs was suspected of being part of a murder plot.

“Murder? Who is he going to murder?”

Rocky noted a slight change in the police chief's demeanor and wondered if he had said too much to someone who may be a part of the conspiracy, willingly or not. He decided to fabricate the rest. When he stopped speaking the police chief said:

“Wait here. I’ll be back in a moment.”

The chief got up and left the room with Rocky's badge still in his hand. Rocky tried to follow him and regain his badge, but Huai Jingchan told him to sit back down.  He ordered the two policemen who had brought him in to stay with Rocky.

It was a long wait during which Rocky began to realize that he had made a grave mistake trusting the chief. His fears were confirmed when the Huai Jingchan returned.

"I just had an interesting conversation with the Chief of Police in Beijing. It seems the detective to whom this badge belongs died in a fire, and the badge stolen by the person who set the fire."

This fabrication was coming from somewhere else. If Rocky's own Chief of Police Te Dan was anything, he was scrupulously honest and would never concoct a story like that. The man holding his badge was either part of the conspiracy or one of the conspirators’ lackeys. Either way, for now, Rocky’s life as a policeman was over. It was now a matter of trying to influence the outcome of his current situation. He still wanted to find Kalihs Almas. He wanted to foil the conspiracy. It was no longer a matter of doing his duty as a policeman. It was a matter of honor. His honor. China's honor.   Making it look like he had blurted out something accidentally, he shouted at the police Chief.

“Allah be praised! I did no such thing!”

*****

Istanbul

"No, Starbucks?" Sally asked in feigned amazement.

"Sometimes, change is good." Trumpet replied with a smile.

 They were in Istanbul Ataturk Airport in a restaurant called The Greenport. It had, what the airport Starbucks didn’t have, a wall for Trumpet’s back.

"Besides, the green goes well with your orange headscarf." He said with a smile.

They had spent most of that day, bringing each other up to speed, filling in gaps that arose from their frequent cryptic messaging and planning their next moves. Trumpet explained his relationship with Rocky and how she could get in touch with him.

"There are some nice Starbucks in Beijing." He said with a smile. "Before you go, I need to tell you that someone took a shot at me while I was in the states."

It was not something a father wants to tell his daughter, and he had hesitated. But they had made a promise always to share everything, and Trumpet was sticking to his oath. He briefly covered the circumstances, and although she was deeply disturbed by this bit of news, she put on a brave face.

“That happens a lot in my country.” She said.

"Just be careful, Sally. We are obviously dealing with some dangerous people."

"You too, Papa," Sally replied. She rose from her seat. "I have a plane to catch."

She leaned over and kissed him on his forehead. He watched her as she walked down the concourse. He could see her orange scarf among all the people coming and going. She reminded Trumpet of her mother. After Sally was out of sight, he walked out of the terminal and hailed a cab to take him to the Zeytinburnu district. They had updated each other. It was time for him to update their clients.

The Uyghur diaspora in Turkey has existed since the 1950s. It has grown in recent years as more and more Uyghurs risk their lives to flee the oppressive Chinese government. Once they leave, they can never return for their defecting puts them in the eyes of the Chinese government on the same level as terrorists. Among the Uyghurs in Istanbul are men whose families have been in Turkey for generations. Some of those families have amassed a fortune in textiles or other businesses, formed secret groups with secret agendas, and used their wealth to support these agendas. It was one such group that Trumpet served. It was a group of men he had known as a young man growing up in Istanbul. He knew they were honorable and trusted them without question, as they did him.

They met him inside a walled compound where men in dark suits and narrow ties walked about, making sure no one approached that was not welcome. To wander even close to this compound would be a dangerous thing for a Chinese tourist to do, for these men were Uyghurs with a deep loathing for Chinese people.

"Our worse fears are realized. "Trumpet began. "This is a plot by the Chinese to destroy the Uyghur people's reputation and legitimize their extermination in East Turkistan ." He was using the term Uyghurs prefer when referring to China's Xinjiang province.

“Unfortunately, “he continued, “the participants not only include high ranking elements of the Chinese government but  powerful elements of the American Central Intelligence Agency.”

Hala Bashi, a slender man with a thin white beard, sat with the others on pillows on the floor around a large low-slung circular table.  He was the organization's central decision-maker. Hala Bashi's contacts in both Istanbul and the greater Turkic world were extensive. His interest in doing whatever he could to protect his people was intense. Although everyone in his group had a voice in deliberations, Hala Bashi had the final say.

“Why would the CIA have any interest in destroying our people?” he asked.

"Because the action of the plot fulfills a different need for them." Trumpet answered. "Often in these matters, allies in a conspiracy are not interested in the outcome for the main reason, but for some reason that serves themselves."

 “And what is this plot exactly?” Hala Bashi asked.

 Trumpet hesitated. He knew that whatever he said would stay behind the walls of the compound. But he was not sure how they would react. The idea was so incredible. But it was all-or-nothing time now. If they came to doubt him and canceled his contract, he might be out of some big money, but at least he could pull his daughter out of harm's way. Always look on the bright side, he said to himself.

He told them of the plot to kill the American president when he visits China and blame it on Uyghurs. There was silence for a moment, and then one in the group spoke, He was the youngest assembled and had some Western experience.

"Don't most people want him dead?" he said. And then not waiting for an answer, he plunged into a rant about the American president finishing with "the planet would celebrate this killing even the Chinese!"

“Chinese might celebrate behind closed doors.” Trumpet replied. “But they would capitalize on the killing of an American president by a Uyghur as a chance to sew goodwill towards Americans by ending the existence of East Turkistan. It is something they want badly to do!”

"And," Trumpet continued, "the international pressure on Uyghurs would  reach to Ankara."

"But," Hala Bashi replied, “the Turkish government has always been very supportive of us.”

“Consider who would replace this president.” Trumpet replied. “Alben Hobart is a Christian fanatic. His contempt for Muslims is known. Turkey is a Muslim country.  Once it became known that Turkey protects Uyghurs, the pressure from the United States to inflict revenge on Uyghurs in Turkey would be intense. It would not be something the Turkish government could ignore.”

“Turkish government or not.” Hala Bashi said. “A plot to exterminate our people must be stopped!”

"Where do we go from here?" he asked, looking into Trumpets eyes.

“I have a team in place.” Trumpet replied. He loved to refer to himself and Sally as a team.

“Let me work on this some more. There is still time, although not much. I will be able to advise you on what you should do, once I know more. I see my mission for you is to stop this plot. If I fail, I will design a contingency plan to minimize the damage here in Istanbul."

"Your costs are high." the group's bookkeeper remarked.  And before Trumpet could respond Hala Bashi said:

"Everyone here is committed to protecting our people in China as best we can. We are willing to commit our resources to that end."

"I, too, am committed." Trumpet replied, pulling a sheet of paper from his coat pocket and handing it to Hala Bashi. " Now, here is what I need to continue."

*****

Hangzhou

The announcement of a Saturday morning faculty meeting set Richard Grant's teeth on edge. This would never happen back home. It meant he would have to function on a Saturday morning, which, given his propensity for Friday night merriment, was for him not normal. As an act of rebellion, he proceeded to have a wild Friday night. He then fortified himself with a couple of shots of Jack and a tall Starbucks coffee on Saturday morning.

He made his way into the canteen and slumped into a chair. Most of the faculty was already there. Sally Peyton was not. Grant turned to one of the two women teachers who didn’t want to have anything to do with him and asked if she knew the purpose of this meeting.

"Someone on the faculty got busted for pot." She replied, her face expressing her usual disdain for Grant.  "I think we are going to be visited by the Chinese police."

Headmaster Trumbell stepped onto the platform that often served as a stage. His face was a mask of stress. He announced that all the faculty had to remain on campus while the police searched their apartments. He then felt compelled to remind the assembled educators that possession of illicit drugs would result in deportation and the end of their teaching career at best, and at the worst prison time in China. He then went on a rant about the school's reputation and all the hours he put into enhancing it.

"You may work in your classrooms but do not leave the campus. I will tell you when we can do so."

And with that, he promptly walked off the stage and out of the canteen.

Grant went to his classroom, only because it was slightly less pointless than staying in the canteen. He was not about to do any work on a weekend. The hours of a Saturday slipped away as a bored Richard Grant played chess games on his classroom computer. He then took to wandering down the halls of the school and engaging anyone in conversation who had left their classroom door open. The two women who wanted nothing to do with him knew better. Their doors were locked.

From one colleague, he learned that the pot smoker was the Advance Placement math teacher and that he was already on his way back to the United States. From another, he learned that the police were searching the faculty abodes because they believed the faculty was running a drug ring. They were determined to reveal it and break it up.

"Well, I hope no such ring exists around here," Grant said. "In this country, drug dealers get a bullet in the back of the head courtesy of the Chinese government."

At 3:00 pm, Trumbell turned on the public address system and ordered his faculty back to the canteen. The educators, unhappy at the loss of a Saturday streamed in, Grant among them. Trumbell was back on the platform, appearing no less stressed than he had that morning. Behind the headmaster stood a row of Chinese police officers and a guy in plain clothes Grant recognized.

As Trumbell spoke about the outcome of the search and the responsibilities everyone on his staff had to be good international citizens, Grant focuses his attention on the plainclothes detective until he finally remembered where he had seen him before. It was the smaller of the two guys with Sally Peyton in the Uyghur restaurant the night she said she had "other plans." So, those guys were cops, after all. He wondered briefly about the other one, the big guy. How come he wasn’t with his partner? He looked about the canteen. Still no Sally. So, what were these cops doing with Sally? Was she their informant? Was she the drug dealer?  Where is she now?

Trumbell dismissed the faculty, and Grant went home. He found a few things in different places than where they were that morning, but his apartment had not been ransacked. He poured himself a glass of whiskey, walked out onto his little balcony, and lit a cigarette. It was beginning to get dark, and the lights of the street below were already on. A cab pulled up next to the apartment building across the street, and a woman with a bright green scarf on her head got out. He watched her go into the building, tossed back the whiskey, and then stubbed out his cigarette and went back inside.

His laptop indicated that he had a message from his favorite online retailer. He had ordered a drone, and the notice stated it would be available for pick up at the school on Monday. For the moment, Grant forgot about the lost Saturday and the enigmatic Sally Peyton and delighted himself with the thought of the fun he would have with a drone in China. He imagined flying it around pagodas, over the Great Wall, and across the Qiantang River during the tidal bore next year.  He would be able to take great aerial videos now.

While Grant in his apartment enjoyed thinking about the potential fun, a drone could provide Sally Peyton entered her apartment and hung her green scarf next to the rest of her collection. She looked around to see if the police had found anything of importance and was relieved to see that the tools of her real trade remained untouched.   It was obvious that the police had searched her place, but she had done a good job of concealing them.

Sally was exhausted. Upon arriving back in Shanghai, she had immediately gone to the Shanghai Hongqiao train station for a five-hour ride to Beijing. Once there, Sally followed the procedures laid out by Trumpet for contacting Rocky. She made several attempts, all to no avail. Finally, in desperation, Sally broke protocol and went to the police station where Rocky worked. Presenting herself as the daughter of a friend of the detective who wanted her to look him up while visiting Beijing, she was shocked to discover that he had disappeared. No one at the police station seemed to know what had happened to him. The line of questioning that they put to her gave her a clear indication that a missing person's investigation was quietly in progress.

Now back in her apartment in Hangzhou, she set her cell phone up to transmit a message to RVA240 that only Trumpet would see. As always, she kept it very short.

No Contact

 

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