White Jade (The PROJECT) by Alex Lukeman

involved?" said Jordan .
    " If we wanted to? You couldn't. Unless…" Carter stopped.
    "Unless what?"
    "Unless we were occupied with something else. Something that had our attention while Yang took over."
    "It would have to be a damn big attention getter , " Ronnie said . "It would have to be something national, something that drew a lot of resources."
    "What about a terrorist attack?"
    Everyone looked at Selena.
    "Well," she said, "don't look at me like that. Isn't that what you do here? Go after terrorists?"
    "Yes." Harker watched her.
    "An attack would keep everyone busy. Yang could use the Triads to make trouble while he grabs power."
    Ronnie raised an eyebrow. " That's really devious . Remind me not to play poker with you. But we'd find out it was him. We'd have to do something."
    "What? Send in troops? Nuke China ?"
    The room was silent as each of them thought about that.
    " How many in the Triads ? " Harker picked up her pen again .
    Jordan said, " Several thousand in the Bay Area, if you count the youth gangs. They ' re usually sent as enforcers. Thousands more spread out over the country, particularly Houston , L.A. and New York . W e ' re not certain. "
    Stephanie said , " We need more data. "
    " How do we get that? " asked Jordan .
    The Director tapped her pen. " For openers, there ' s the book. Why does Yang want it? Selena, I need you to get it translated. I assume computer time will help? "
    " It will. I ' ve identified points in common between what I can read and what I can ' t. I want to run a matrix comparison. It should give us an idea. "
    " Good. Stephanie , program it in for her. W hile Selena is working on the translation you can run probability scenarios. I want to see what the computers say about what we ' ve been discussing. "
    " Yes, Director. "
    Harker said, "All we've got is speculation and Deng's story. We have pieces of intelligence but we don't have any proof. We may be wrong."
    "You don't think that," Jordan said.
    "It doesn't matter what I think. I can't go to the President and tell him someone's trying to take over China without hard facts."
    Jordan looked at his watch. "Director, I can let my boss know what we've been talking about, but no one's going to do much based on speculation."
    "I'll brief you as we develop this."
    "I guess that will have to do."
    When Jordan was gone Selena said, "I'd like to go back to my rooms at the Mayflower. No offense, but that apartment of yours is depressing. I t's confining, hard to think in. I need room to pace around ."
    "That's not a good idea. There's no security at the hotel . "
    Carter said , " S he c ould stay at my place. I've got a spare bedroom. I t would be a lot more comfortable than downstairs. There ' s an empty unit next door to mine . Ronnie can set up in there and keep an eye on things . "
    Harker gave him a curious look. " You think it ' s safer than here? "
    " No, but it's safe enough. T here ' s a security desk, cameras. They have to think Selena and I are dead in that mine. "
    " Selena, are you comfortable with that? "
    " I guess so." She gave Nick a thoughtful look. " T here ' s no reason those people would know we ' re still alive. "
    "All right. Just make sure you take every precaution."
    Harker stood. " Let ' s get going. "

Chapter Twenty- Two
     
    Selena, Nick and Stephanie went down to the computer room . Wide doors of thick glass separated the room from the hallway . Stephanie punched in numbers on a keypad and stood close to a facial recognition scanner mounted on the wall . A line of green light tracked back and forth across her face. The glass doors slid open with a quiet hiss.
    The room was frigid with arctic air conditioning. Half a dozen towering Cray super computers finished in an irritating red lined both sides of a polished aisle stretching the length of the room.
    Stephanie walked past them and stopped at a large, semi-circular console in front of another Cray. This one was gray-black . Mounted on a tall cooling unit, i