The Last Spy

By Bryan Mooney

China has been stealing America’s most treasured secrets for the past thirty years. The Chinese communists have stolen military, biomedical, computer, agricultural, and technology secrets – targeting anything representing American excellence. Thousands of incessant cyberattacks and hundreds of thousands of Chinese spies wage war daily against America and its allies. They had to be stopped.
In 2016, when the latest in advanced American technology turned out to be a tremendously expensive failure, CIA operatives leaped into action. The upper echelons of America’s top intelligence services hatched a brilliant plan to stop the Chinese thievery once and for all. Their mission was classified at the highest level, TOP SECRET–CRIMSON. The plan was simple and foolproof – let the Chinese steal it! The plan worked flawlessly for years until Daniel Bronson, a low-level government auditor, stumbled across it. With years of planning and America’s national security at risk, he had to be silenced at all costs–sooner rather than later. This is that story...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bryan Mooney
• Release date: Jul 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005442187

Bryan Mooney

Bryan Mooney is the author of Christmas in Vermont, Once We Were Friends, Love Letters, A Second Chance, and other romance novels, as well as the Nick Ryan thriller series. He spent years traveling the globe for both business and pleasure, and he draws upon those experiences in his writing. Originally from the Midwest, Bryan now lives in sunny South Florida with his childhood sweetheart and longtime wife, Bonnie. When he’s not penning romance novels and thrillers on the beach, he and his wife love to travel. Connect with Bryan at www.bryanmooneyauthor.com.

Book preview

THE LAST SPY

a novel by

BRYAN MOONEY

BME Publishing, Baltimore Maryland

THE LAST SPY

Copyright © July 2022 by BME Publications – First edition

Published worldwide by BME-all rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America and protected under all applicable worldwide copyright protection. All rights reserved.

Published simultaneously in Canada, UK, India, Mexico, France, China, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Japan, and other countries worldwide.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This is a novel. Likewise, any references to historical events, real people, places, or companies are also used fictitiously.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission from the publisher, BME, Baltimore Maryland.

Books by Bryan Mooney

Mystery Thrillers

The Last Spy

The Potus Papers

Eye of the Tiger

Indie

Christmas Tales

Christmas in Vermont

It’s a Wonderful Christmas

Under the Christmas Moon

Bells of Saint Michaels

A Christmas Flower

Contemporary Romance

Love Letters

Summer of ’68

Been in Love Before

Once We Were Friends

A Box of Chocolates

A Second Chance

About the Author

The author has spent years in the American intelligence arena, beginning with his time at the Army intelligence training headquarters at Fort Holabird, Maryland, and later a stint at the Defense Language Institute at the State Department. His last military assignment was with the 66th Military Intelligence Group headquarters attached to the 430th Military Intelligence Detachment in Munich, Germany, Clandestine Services Branch running the Berlin desk. While there, he held a Top Secret RODCA (Reporting Of Defense Clandestine Activities) intelligence clearance with the United States Army European Command. The author has been an advocate and member of the following intelligence organizations:

AFIO – Association of Former Intelligence Officers

AOC – Association of Old Crows

FAOA – Foreign Area Intelligence Officer Association

OSS Society – Office of Strategic Services Society

NOTE:

This book has not been submitted to the CIA, DIA, ODNI, or DOD prepublication review boards. –BDM

Praise for

THE LAST SPY

★★★★★

"… Mooney has produced a masterpiece. Perfection." – N. Belle – Delray Beach

"Could not put it down. Grabbed me by the throat from the start." CDC– Intelligence Analyst

"Really scary stuff. And all of it true." – Monica R. – Austin, Texas

"Had to read it again. I learned so much… loved it." – John K. – Huntington Beach

"…didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. Fun book. Well done!" – Rachel P. – NYC – Goodreads

"Started it on Friday and read through the weekend. Couldn’t put it down!" – JK – Miami

"…one of Mooney’s best. Can’t wait for the sequel. Or the movie!" – Rocky A. – Chicago

"… chilling… "– Mike R. – Langley, Virginia

"… what a fun read… but I learned a lot…" – J.P – Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Glossary of Terms

AIS – Automatic Identification System

APT – Advanced Persistent Threat (Chinese Hacker groups)

ASIS – Australian Secret Intelligence Service

BGP – Border Gateway Protocols

CFTC – Commodity Futures Trading Commission

CCP – Chinese Communist Party

CNIPA – China National Intellectual Property Administration

IIP – Internet Interaction Point

ISS – Intelligence Support Services

ILO – Intelligence Liaison Officer

LIBOR – London Interbank Offered Rate (Now SOFR – 12.31.21)

MSS – Ministry of State Security – Chinese Intelligence

ODNI – Office of the Director of National Intelligence

PAFMM – Peoples Armed Forces Maritime Militia

PLA – People’s Liberation Army

PLAN – People’s Liberation Army Navy

PLAAF – People’s Liberation Army Air Force

PLARF – People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force

PLASTC – PLA Southern Theatre Command

POP – Point Of Presence

PRC – Peoples Republic of China

RDT – Radiation Detection Technology

RAMP – Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes (CIA)

ROC – Republic of China (Taiwan)

SAC – Special Activities Center – CIA

SOG – Special Operations Group – CIA

SAHARA – Structured Array Hardware for Automatically Realized Applications (DARPA)

SIS – Secret Intelligence Service (British – formerly MI6)

SNM – Special Nuclear Material

TTIC – Technology Transfer Intelligence Center

UNIT 81 – Israeli Secret Technology Agency

UNIT 8200 – Israeli Signal Intelligence Agency

USNORTHCOM United States Northern Command

USPACOM United States Pacific Command

USTR – United States Trade Representative Office

This story is completely true…

…except for the parts that were completely made up.

–Author

Prologue

China has been stealing America’s most treasured secrets for the past thirty years. The Chinese communists have stolen military, biomedical, computer, agricultural, and technology secrets – targeting anything representing American excellence. Thousands of incessant cyberattacks and hundreds of thousands of Chinese spies wage war daily against America and its allies. They had to be stopped.

In 2016, when the latest in advanced American technology turned out to be a tremendously expensive failure, CIA operatives leaped into action. The upper echelons of America’s top intelligence services hatched a brilliant plan to stop the Chinese thievery once and for all. Their mission was classified at the highest level, TOP SECRET–CRIMSON. The plan was simple and foolproof – let the Chinese steal it! The plan worked flawlessly for years until Daniel Bronson, a low-level government auditor, stumbled across it. With years of planning and America’s national security at risk, he had to be silenced at all costs–sooner rather than later. This is that story…

Chapter One

June 3, 1982 – Soviet Siberia

Something was wrong. It did not feel right, and that feeling would not go away. That morning, inside his underground control room, Senior Technician Comrade Anatoly Salkin felt the ground slowly rumble beneath his desk… again. But this time, it was louder, more forceful, but no one would listen to him when he reported it back to Central Control in Moscow. The rumble was a measured, rolling tremor followed by a deep baritone hum which increased in volume until suddenly it stopped. Anatoly looked up from his magazine and shot a glance at the control dials – nothing. All green lights. No reds. He listened again–all normal, as he returned his attention to his reading. Just add it to the logbook, Anatoly, he told himself. It’s not your problem after tomorrow.

Twenty minutes later, deep inside the cold subterranean bunker, his metal desk shook again, enough to cause his pencil to roll to one side of his desk as it headed for the black and white tile floor. He caught it before it hit the ground. Strange, he thought to himself. He used the stub of a pencil to mark off the date on his calendar. Just one more day, he thought, still thinking about the tremors. One more day, and he would be gone from this miserable unforgiving frozen wasteland. He looked down the wall at the long line of green lights stretching to the other end of the control room. After glancing at his monitors, he saw all systems were performing perfectly, for once. His job was to ensure the pressurized pumps and gauges worked correctly before turning over the controls to Lukgaz, the local government natural gas company. Then his job was done.

Anatoly had overseen many pipeline startups and the final tests of new natural gas pumping stations over his last twenty years with the government. His job was to ensure everything was functioning correctly; they had been pumping natural gas for the previous three weeks without a problem. This was a new, bigger, faster, and more powerful system using an advanced ATR system based on the latest technology that had been liberated from the capitalist Americans. Today, everything was working smoothly, just in time for the official grand opening the next day.

At noon tomorrow, the bored bureaucrats who had made the long three-thousand-mile journey from Moscow would be in attendance after attending lavish vodka parties tonight. Tomorrow would mark the official grand opening of the 1,700-mile Soviet Tolusk Trans-Siberian Gas Pipeline. It was the largest gas pipeline in all of Mother Russia, built at great expense and hardship. And, at 2 p.m., he would officially turn over the control room keys to those who would relieve him of his monotonous assignment.

Anatoly Salkin, the balding Level 3 Supervising Control Technician, would be glad to be out of this damp and dark place and be back in his single-room flat in Moscow again with his darling Liliya. In Moscow, summer would soon beckon him, with its lush green parks, broad streets, busy outdoor cafés, and friendly vodka bars open twenty-four hours a day. But in Siberia, it never seemed to warm. Instead, his hands and feet were always cold, chilling his body to the bone during the monotonous twelve-hour shifts.

The room shuddered again. Must be the boiler. Damn boiler, Anatoly thought to himself. The central Soviet government could spend all that money on this natural gas pipeline but couldn’t afford a decent boiler system to heat the place. They use an old prewar Ukrainian one, no doubt. He had heard that the government had spent hundreds of billions of precious foreign currencies building this pipeline across some of the world’s most frigid, barren mountains. For weeks, temperatures were often fifty degrees below zero or colder. But now, the pipeline was complete and just in time. The Moscow regime had borrowed so much money that the country was nearly bankrupt, but this massive gas pipeline would provide much-needed foreign currency, over eighty billion U.S. dollars a year.

One more day, he told himself, that’s all I have to endure, just one more day. He wished he could be in town with all the dignitaries celebrating with the best vodka, champagne, and caviar and getting drunk and having fun. But, no, he was stuck here, three hundred feet underground in this sterile white room, watching the green lights flickering on the control panels.

Row upon row of tiny green lights lit up the wall. Anatoly had not seen a red light in weeks, other than number seventy-eight. Good. A green light at the far end of the panel blinked momentarily, then stopped. Then, suddenly the red light above it flashed. He could tell by looking at his master monitor-it was number seventy-eight… again. The offending bulb was halfway down the long control panel. Using both feet, he pushed away from the floor, and as his chair spun around, he rolled himself down the room, racing until he stopped in front of the offending blinking red light. Yes, number seventy-eight. Again. Main pump.

Using his forefinger, he thumped the errant light. He did it again until it stopped flashing, and the comforting green light reappeared. This would call for another notation in his logbook when he handed it off to his replacement in the morning. He didn’t mind; it broke the boredom. Maybe the light should be replaced, but that was not his concern. Besides, no replacement bulbs had been allocated for this year-too expensive. And with that attended to, he spun around and rolled back to his desk.

Number seventy-eight blinked red once more before turning back to green.

The room rumbled beneath his feet, and the wall behind the long regulator panel shook. The long narrow room always gave him the shivers. An all-white control room, at three hundred feet underground, would make anyone claustrophobic. Even the experienced Anatoly got the chills thinking about everything that could go wrong. Sometimes he had to close his eyes to stop the walls from closing in on him. They moved closer, suffocating him.

Reaching inside his bottom desk drawer, he retrieved a half-empty bottle of local Yetzin vodka, and a shot glass, and promptly filled it. "Nostrovia," he toasted to no one in particular as he raised his glass high in the air. He took another drink. Then another. It calmed his nerves but reminded him-I hate it down here.

A second red light blinked halfway down the forty-foot wall of controls before the light beneath it returned to its constant green color. He squinted. It flashed red again. Then another red light came on, but this one was closer to him. Another light blinked until six lights were flashing red. He was getting nervous. This had not happened before. He slowly set his half-empty vodka glass down on his desk.

It was then he heard it…a loud, screeching metallic noise, the sound of stressed metal, slowly twisting, turning, bending. He could tell that tension and pressure were building somewhere deep behind the wall of his control room. The noise became louder. But the control panel showed the pressure was still well inside the safe range. The floor beneath his feet rumbled as if a train were roaring under him. Louder and louder, it rumbled until he finally reached for his phone to call the control office above him, but it was too late. It exploded. It was all over in a flash, an enormous flash, bright enough to be seen from space, leveling the town, the trees, and farms for miles around the facility.

• • •

Within minutes of the blast, a secure phone rang in the Oval Office of the West Wing of the White House.

The President picked up his private red phone and heard a voice on the other side say simply, Mr. President. This is Johnson at Langley. It’s happened, sir.

Thank you, he said upon hanging up the phone with a satisfied smile. That’s it. We did it, he told his Chief of Staff. Now, let’s have a drink.

• • •

Deep inside NORAD’s command center in the Cheyenne Mountain complex in Colorado, Sergeant First Class Paola Rodriguez was finishing his shift when his monitor panel lit up. He sat back down and said cooly, Commander, we have a cowboy here, a real hot one. Ignition in USSR, map coordinates, 61° 0’ 49.356 N / 99° 11’ 47.962 E. – direction as yet unknown, sir. Begin tracking at 19:29 Zulu time, sir. He added solemnly, Sir, it’s a new launch location for us, sir."

The overhead warning light flashed its intermittent red and white light to signify a new warning level, a move to Station Charlie. Night commander Lt. Colonel Watkins eased in behind his senior and most experienced non-commissioned officer. I see it, sergeant. Keep tracking it.

Yes, sir, he responded, his eyes glued to the monitor.

Watkins sat next to his missile control technician and quickly lifted the security receiver from the wall. He heard them answer the phone. Yes, sir. This is Red Line here.

This is Shift Commander Watkins. We have a bird. Get me the White House, STAT.

He sat watching the monitor, perplexed. This was unlike anything he had ever seen, coming from a place where the Soviets were not known to have nuclear weapons. Damn, we never should have trusted those sneaky Soviets to tell the truth about their nukes. But there was no thermonuclear radiation signature with this one. I don’t understand it. What gives?

Within seconds there was a voice on the other end of the line, This is the President. What is your status, Commander Watkins?

A bird has flown, Mr. President, he stood while addressing his Commander-in-Chief, and sir, it is from a previously unknown location inside the Soviet Union in Western Siberia. And sir, this bird has no thermonuclear signature.

You said Siberia, Commander?

Yes, sir, Mr. President. Map coordinates, 61° 0’ 49.356 N / 99° 11’ 47.962 E, Tolusk, Soviet Siberia, sir."

Tolusk?

Yes, sir, Mr. President.

Thank you, Commander Watkins. Stand down.

Startled, the colonel responded, Stand down, sir? Sir, did you say to stand down? Please repeat?

Yes, Commander, that’s what I said. Stand down. Return to Station Alpha. I repeat, stand down. We’ll take it from here.

Yes, sir, Mr. President.

Good night, commander.

Good night, sir. As Watkins hung up the phone, he smiled and mused, pity he could not tell anyone about that evening. It was classified, and besides, no one would believe him.

• • •

The National Reconnaissance Operations office in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, even though it operated 24/7, was unusually quiet that night. It suddenly sprang to life when its computers began spewing waves of data from its monitors and printing reports to nearby high-speed printers. Air Force three-star Lt. General Nathan Greenwater reread the reports three times before activating his hotline to the White House. It was answered immediately.

Mr. President, one of our satellites just reported what appears to be a huge explosion in Soviet Siberia.

Is that so, General? Are you positive it was not a launch of some sort from the Soviets?

Yes, sir, positive. There was no electromagnetic pulse or thermonuclear radiation from the site, sir. No, sir, it was an explosion and a big one. We calculate that this blast was at least six kilotons, nearly as powerful as the Japanese Hiroshima atomic bomb explosion. It occurred just outside of the small Soviet town of Tolusk in Soviet Siberia, sir. We’ve been monitoring the area closely during the Soviet’s gas pipeline construction project, sir.

Yes, General Greenwater, go on.

Well, sir, this thing was so huge, it took the whole town. And the nearby mountain is gone, sir. Everything. There is nothing left there, sir. Our computers have analyzed the data from the flyover by our satellites, sir. They have advised us they calculate that it was a gas pipeline explosion of major proportions-estimated to be a three to five kiloton explosion.

Anything else, General?

No, sir, but we are still watching the area. No other indications, sir.

Thank you, general. Stand down and send out your reports in the morning. Have a good evening, general. That will be all.

Excuse me, sir?

I said stand down. Good night, general.

Yes, sir. He paused before hurrying to add, Good night, sir.

• • •

Well, Mr. President, you did it, said the President’s Chief of Staff, Barry Jenkins. They had been best friends through high school and college. Best man at each of their weddings. Barry had run the president’s mayoral, gubernatorial, and senate races and the tightest race for the biggest prize–the White House. They had been through it all together, but he still addressed the tall, reserved man as Mr. President. Never by his first name since he took the oath of office.

Yeah, BJ, we pulled it off. We can thank the French and their DST Intelligence service. Yes, indeed, with input from their Agent Farewell. We done good. We done real good. It worked. Gus’s plan worked. I can’t believe it. He clapped his hands together. I feel like celebrating. Pour me a drink, will you, Barry? A bourbon and branch.

Yes, sir, Mr. President.

He winced every time his old friend called him that, especially when it was just the two of them. Barry, you know I’ve asked you to call me….

Please, sir, I know what you are going to say, but ….

Okay, I won’t argue with you, not tonight. He took in a deep sigh of resignation, realizing he would never change his old friend from Houston. Barry. Cheers. Those damn Soviets never knew what hit ’em. They just kept looking at their gauges and kept saying, ‘Yup, everything is workin’ fine. Yup. Yup. Yup.’

He laughed, True, Mr. President, but I’ve learned never to underestimate the Soviets or the Chinese, sir.

Right, ‘trust but verify.’ Well, tonight, we put ’em on notice not to steal any more of our technology secrets. Never know what you might be getting. They got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. We taught ’em, yes we did by golly, but we also put their new gas pipeline out of commission for a couple of years and cost them a bundle in foreign currency. Now they’ll have to wonder about every technology secret they have stolen from us over the last ten years and anything they try to steal from this point forward. It will take them years to recover. If they ever do. Gus’s plan worked. We deserve to celebrate.

The affable president from Texas took another drink and chuckled out loud. Imagine them thinking they could come into our backyard, steal our secrets, and make a fortune off our technology?

You’re right, Mr. President. But they have been doing it for fifteen years, remember?

He made another face before saying, I think before I call the French President and thank him and his intelligence service, I gonna make another call first.

Gus?

Yeah, he deserves a phone call. After all, it was his idea. He dreamed it up and executed it. Not at all easy. He picked up the phone and said to the White House operator, Operator, get me young Gus White on the line, will you please?

Yes, sir, Mr. President.

It was late, and the big red brick colonial house in Georgetown was quiet, and the lights were off when the phone rang. Gus White quickly grabbed it from its cradle on the nearby bed stand so as not to wake his wife, Hello, he whispered.

Gus, hi, this is POTUS. Hope I didn’t wake you?

No, sir, of course not, he said with one open eye as he looked at the nearby digital alarm clock as the time clicked over to 2:37 a.m.

His young wife rustled in bed, turning towards him. Her eyes were still closed as she asked, Who is it, dear?

The President, sweetheart. Go back to sleep.

She murmured something about having him lower their taxes and then drifted off to sleep once again.

Gus, I thought you would want to know… it happened.

The young presidential advisor was immediately awake. He had waited years to hear those words. Gus felt a huge weight lifted from his shoulders as he swung his feet to the floor. It had been a risky plan all along. Now it was over. This success would make getting approval for his other projects that much easier.

We have two confirmations, one from NORAD and the other from NRO. Both confirmed a huge explosion in Soviet Siberia. Thanks for all your help and the help of your team, son. Good job. Now go back to sleep. See you in the morning.

Thank you for calling Mr. President. Next time we have to be more precise with our targeting and timing so we can…

The big-hearted politician laughed to cut him off. We can work on refining it with the folks at the CIA at another time. For now, goodnight, Gus. Go back to your family and apologize to Charlotte for me for calling so late.

Yes, sir. She said she wants you to lower her taxes.

I’ll do my best, son. Goodnight.

As the Soviet summer dragged on, a paint processing plant in St. Petersburg exploded and had to be closed for nine months while it was repaired. Shortly after that, an electronics plant in Minsk suffered severe assembly line disruptions. Leningrad and Vladavostiock also experienced multiple issues with their military shipbuilding operations. As a result, it became clear to the Soviets what had happened. But unfortunately, they had learned their lesson the hard way.

Over the next three months, the Soviets shuttered most of their overseas spying operations and stopped their ongoing espionage attacks against the United States, Great Britain, and its allies. But only time would tell how long the fragile truce would last.

Chapter Two

March 3, 2016 – Québec, Canada – (34 years later)

Li Leo Wang stood on the cold deck of the Canadian ferry, the Alphonse Desjardins, waiting for his contact to arrive. Li was a successful Miami businessman selling airplane components to major American defense contractors and subcontractors. He was a well-respected member of the community, a family man, a father of two, president of the local homeowners’ association, an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, and president of the local Chinese American Society.

Leo Wang was also a spy, or rather, he ran a complex Chinese spy ring. A very successful one at that.

He had arrived in Québec City earlier in the day to meet his contact and deliver a large cache of intelligence his team had purloined over the prior weeks. It was not his typical meeting –prearranged a week in advance in the early afternoon, but rather it was a hastily arranged meeting late at night with little notice. As usual, he had left his rental car in the parking lot across the river, taken the car ferry from Québec City to the small riverside village of Lévis, and now waited for his contact to arrive.

This was the last ferry of the day back to Québec City. He waited, watching a rusty icebreaker struggling to keep the vital artery of commerce, the Saint Lawrence River, open for ship traffic. The forty-nine-year-old Canadian icebreaker, the Pierre Radisson, slogged through the jagged ice sheets on the Saint Lawrence River. It slowly crossed the frozen river, crushing the ten-inch layer of ice beneath its eight thousand tons, pushed by its massive diesel engines. Ice floes cracked and shattered, the sounds echoing like a high-velocity pistol as the old ship cleared the way for the last car ferry of the night to make its way safely to the other side of the river. Without these ice-breaking ships’ regular passings, the river would freeze over, causing them to be impassable during the coldest winter months.

Québec City’s summer charm with its corner musicians, overflowing window boxes of dangling flowers, street-side dancers, and artists were all long gone. The busy bistros lining the Grand Allee, noted for their long-stemmed beer glasses and outdoor sidewalk tables, were all shuttered for the season. The horse-drawn calèches which rambled through the town filled with tourists waited elsewhere for the warmer weather. Summertime was beautiful in Québec City, but in winter, it was just another icy city.

Canada was cold, too cold, thought Leo, taking one last puff of his cigarette before he crushed the butt beneath his shoe. His hands were cold. His feet were cold. His nose was cold. It reminded him of his childhood winters in Changping, a suburb outside Beijing. But now, he preferred the healing warmth of Miami, his home for the last thirty-plus years with his wife, Kai. They lived on a sunny, palm-lined street in a mainly Chinese American suburb where he commuted six days a week to his office in North Miami. He suddenly wished he was home now, having tea with Kai overlooking their carefully manicured Chinese garden. But he knew he would be back home soon.

Li was somewhat nervous about meeting his old friend Xiu Chan. A shiver went through him, not from the cold–something was different about this meeting. He stood outside in the shadows on the main deck of the Lévis ferry. Watching. Waiting. The ferry boat was still loading, preparing to depart to the other side of the nearly frozen St. Lawrence, returning to Québec on the other side. He glanced at his watch. He should be here by now. It’s almost 2 a.m. Where is he?

The ferry back to Québec City was leaving for its last trip for the night across the river when it began to snow heavier than before, with ice covering the metal steps and ramps. The ferry was empty, with no customers in sight.

Li could barely make out the shrouded streetlights on the other side of the Saint Lawrence through the fog and rushing snow. Across the river, in Québec City, the sight of the illuminated Chateau Frontenac overlooking the river below was still unmistakable. But he had to admit he hated Québec in the winter. He hated anyplace other than Florida in the winter, but Québec’s cold ran through you like a sharp knife. But he had made up his mind. He had told no one. This was his last trip to meet his handler. He had enough money for him and Kai to retire and move to the Caribbean, where