Page 52 of Into the Gray Zone (Pike Logan #19)

Mr.Chin returned to his table with a plate full of Western food. He’d ignored the Indian offers, as they tore his guts apart,

and stuck his nose up at the pathetic attempts at Chinese dishes. He sat down, trying to appear nonchalant to the other man

at the table, but it was difficult. Mr.Chin was sure he would be blamed for what had happened at the Oberoi. And maybe that

was warranted.

The man across the table was the Ministry of State Security’s chief in India, and he was not pleased. Mr.Chin said, “I hope

your room was pleasant.”

They were both staying at the Hilton in Jaipur. Him, because he was coordinating with the remnants of the Condor team for

damage control. The chief because the damage control had grown exponentially.

The chief said, “My room is fine. I didn’t come here to see the sights. Where do we stand?”

Mr.Chin said, “They massacred over a dozen people, but Thakkar is still alive. Presumably, so is the mining deal.”

The chief said, “You understand what that means, right? The mining deal Thakkar is involved in is a game changer. We cannot

allow it to continue.”

Mr. Chin took a sip of water and said, “How is it a game changer? I have never understood why this was so important.”

The chief said, “Artificial intelligence is the new form of combat, and it relies on rare earth elements. We own the monopoly

of them right now, but we won’t forever. We need to prevent that loss for as long as possible before we go after Taiwan. If

India becomes a player, we’ll lose. They won’t side with us. They’ll side with the West.”

Mr.Chin let his words settle before bringing up the rotting corpse in the room. “Okay, sir, I understand that stopping India

from extracting rare earth elements is paramount to our global reach, but we now have significant exposure. Do you want to

continue the mission of preventing the deal, or do you want me to cauterize the wound?”

“What do you mean?”

Mr.Chin took a deep breath, let it out, then said, “The men I hired from Riva Thakkar’s security know what I am. I’ve used

them for multiple different operations—much smaller than this, but still, they know I’m not a Chinese businessman. From what

I can glean, one of the security men was captured during the operation. He’s still alive and in the hands of the government.”

The chief looked at him with his dead black eyes and Mr.Chin continued, “I can get rid of him, but if I do, I’ll burn any

ability to continue. It’ll be too risky to kill both him and Thakkar.”

The chief nodded, thinking. Then said, “How much does this man know?”

“He knows enough to compromise me. And he’ll do so under intense pressure, which I’m sure he’s about to experience. The CCP

will be in the glare of the spotlight, which means cutting off the mine deal will be a nonstarter.”

The chief reached across the table and plucked a grape from Mr. Chin’s plate and popped it into his mouth. He said, “You have disappointed me on this one. It should not have been so hard.”

Mr.Chin held up his hands and said, “It wasn’t me. The men I hired went crazy. I couldn’t predict that. I thought they were

in it for the money, but it was more than that. I can still clean it up, with the Condor team.”

“The last time you used them, two of them were killed. You want to try again?”

“The men they went against were the American intelligence team I’ve been warning about since we started this. I can’t be blamed

for that. I told you people that they were skilled.”

“And yet you got my men killed. We’ve barely managed to escape scrutiny on that hit. Actually, the debacle here has helped

the situation. What would have been a front-page news story is now just a couple of deaths in a parking lot. Thanks to your

hired men conducting a Hamas-type attack. Paid for by the Chinese Communist Party.”

“We didn’t pay for this. I had no idea they were going to do what they did. They were in it for the money, right up until

they weren’t.”

“So we have two problems. One is the man the government has in custody. The other is the idiots you paid out in the wild.

They have Riva Thakkar’s daughter, and the entire country is watching. How do you propose solving this?”

“Give me the Condor team. I’ve seen the location where Riva’s security man is being held. I can kill him with a rifle shot.”

“And the second problem?”

“I don’t know yet. But I know where they are. They tricked me earlier, but they outsmarted themselves. One of them is still

wearing the watch I gave him. They used the kill switch, but his didn’t set for some reason. When he rebooted the watch, the

malware started functioning again. He thinks it’s not transmitting, but it is.”

“If you eliminate them, can you return to the primary mission of Riva Thakkar? Blame the death on the same group? It would be a shame to waste the crisis they created. It gives us great cover to execute the mission.”

Mr.Chin considered, then said, “That’s certainly within the realm of the possible, and I agree with the reasoning. Waiting

to reset and trying to kill him later will be much harder from a deniability perspective. Easier to use what they’ve done

to blame them up front. First we need to eliminate the threat to us, though.”

The chief popped another grape into his mouth and said, “Why did they do this? Where did you go wrong? The cover you built

was for them to be Muslim terrorists, and they actually became terrorists. What did we miss? What do they want?”

“I honestly don’t know. They were just a bunch of kids with computer skills. I have no idea why they did what they did. It

makes no sense to me.”

The chief gazed at him for a moment, then said, “It makes sense to them, and we’re going to find out why soon. How on earth

did you miss this?”

“I can’t explain it. I’ve worked with Thakkar’s security for years, but I hired these guys recently. I used them because of

their contacts, not because of their skills. I even had to train them.”

The chief laughed at that, saying, “You trained them well.”

Mr.Chin knew he was on treacherous ground, despite the chuckles. The chief acted like he didn’t mind, but Mr.Chin understood

that he was dangerously close to being eliminated himself. Loose ends were loose ends, be they Indian or Chinese. The chief,

after all, had his own bosses to answer to.

The chief took a sip of water, then said, “You can have the Condor team for the first problem, and I’ll talk to the command about the second, but you failed to mention the third one.”

Mr.Chin said, “Third one? What’s that?”

“The Americans. The team you were adamant about eliminating because they were interfering with the mission. What about them?”

Mr.Chin shook his head and said, “I don’t think they’re in play anymore. Thakkar’s alive, and they did their job. They don’t

care about the daughter.”