Battlefield Taiwan

Dr. Roberts

Placing the manila folder marked TOP SECRET on the table in front of him, Sebastian Roberts closed his eyes and brought his right hand up to rub his eyes and the bridge of his nose. The marathon flight from Langley across Europe to the Middle East, and then eventually across the Indian Ocean to bring him to Singapore, had been no small feat. Had he not been flying in a luxurious Learjet that had a couch he could lie down and sleep on, he might have been even more exhausted than he already was.

Looking briefly out the window, and then at the flight map on the wall, he saw he had less than an hour before they landed. Sebastian closed his eyes and began to go over the case file the Agency had built on Wu, calculating how he would exploit that information to get the answers they were after.

Sebastian was both a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and he had studied at some of the finest institutions the world had to offer. He was a master of understanding the mind, and more importantly, what made people tick. He was also adept at employing the chemical mixtures that regulated and controlled both the mind and emotions. Between his pharmaceutical concoctions and his clever choice of words, Dr. Roberts could have the most hardened person babbling like a baby in minutes, spilling their guts out during an interrogation.

While serving a myriad of deployments with the US government in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a myriad of other countries, Sebastian had developed an extremely effective method of obtaining critical information quickly from even the most uncooperative prisoners. Much to the horror of those in his chosen profession of psychiatry, he had pioneered the term “medical interrogations” and had become the most sought-after subject matter expert in the field by both governments and academia. After the war with Russia had started, Sebastian had once again been contacted by the government and asked to perform his services.

“For a price and anonymity, anything is possible,” he had learned at the outset of the War on Terror.

His current subject, Wu Bangguo, was a bit of an enigma. Having read everything that had been provided to him by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency on the flight here, he had come to his own conclusions. Wu had left little in the way of an electronic footprint, and what trail he did leave had been carefully constructed by the Chinese State Security Service, making it difficult to know what was true versus planted information.

“It won’t matter how much information we have or don’t have on Mr. Wu,” Dr. Roberts thought. “In a few hours, he will tell us everything we want to know.” A wry smile spread across his lips; he had yet to find a person who did not give up the goods once they had been injected with his drug cocktail of choice.

After what felt like an eternity in the air, the plane ferrying Sebastian finally landed at the Changi International Airport in Singapore. Once the lone flight attendant opened the outer door, the hot, humid air began to waft into the aircraft, assaulting his nostrils and lungs with the thick moisture and the exotic smells of the city. Exiting the aircraft, he placed his white fedora on his head and draped his sports jacket over his shoulder. A black unmarked car was waiting near the bottom of the stairs, along with a man in his mid-fifties wearing khaki pants, a Hawaiian shirt, and sunglasses.

“Sebastian, it’s good to see you again,” Jonah Chang said with a warm smile as he walked forward to greet his friend. Jonah was the station chief for Singapore and was the lead CIA agent for Southeast Asia. If there was a secret mission or operation going on in Asia, chances were, Jonah either was involved or knew about it. His group had done a superb job in snatching Wu from Tibet. Staging the snatch-and-grab to look like a terrorist abduction was simply brilliant. The Chinese government was in an absolute tizzy right now over what they called the most brazen terrorist attack on their soil in decades. The fact that a junior Politburo member had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom incensed them to no end.

“Jonah, it’s been too long since we last met. How are the wife and kids doing these days?” replied Dr. Roberts warmly.

“Oh, they are doing good,” Jonah answered. “My oldest is in his second year of college, and my youngest is a junior in high school. Linda is also doing great. She loves being here in Singapore. You know, we’re just an hour flight from Phuket, Thailand. She makes us take nearly all our vacation days in Thailand; it’s simply beautiful.”

The two men made their way into the car. Almost as soon as they were seated, the driver took off towards the CIA safe house.

After the vehicle started moving, Sebastian leaned over towards Jonah. In a low voice, he asked, “How long has Mr. Wu been exposed to the sensory deprivation goggle therapy?”

SDGs were a relatively new tool that had been incorporated into the interrogation process. They were essentially a virtual reality headset that flooded a person’s eyes with various types of lights — strobes, pulses, bright and then fading lights in a multitude of colors. While the visual effects were happening, the noise-cancelling headsets began their own assault on the individual’s auditory sense in conjunction with this. The person would hear a series of noises: crying babies, nails being scratched across a chalkboard, etc. The subject’s brain was bombarded with more stimulation at one time than a person could hope to deal with, leading to sensory overload. Ten minutes of this treatment would feel like hours to the average person — an hour with this headset on and anyone would feel like they had been dealing with it for a day or more. It completely and utterly wore the mind out.

Jonah smiled at the question. “Mr. Wu has been undergoing the SDG therapy now for the past 48 hours. Not all at once, of course. We don’t want the poor man to become insane before you arrive. We’ve given him the therapy for roughly ten minutes every hour. At this point, he now believes several days or even a week has passed since he was abducted.”

To anyone listening in on their conversation, it almost sounded like this was a conversation between two doctors as they discussed a patient, and in a way, it was almost like that — only Sebastian was the doctor, and Wu was the patient.

“Have the soldiers remained in character the whole time?” Sebastian asked.

Because they had staged the entire abduction to appear as if it had been Islamic militants who had abducted him, they wanted to keep that storyline going for as long as possible. It was imperative that they keep Wu believing he was being held by the terrorists for a while longer. Once he realized he was being held by the Americans, his resolve might strengthen, and that was not something they wanted to allow.

“Yes,” Jonah confirmed. “They have done an exceptional job pretending to be terrorists, by the way. The mock execution of the civilians with the Islamic State flag in the background and the bullet-riddled vehicle was superb. You would not believe the hornets’ nest they’ve stirred up with the Chinese in Tibet and other western regions. Our source, the pilot who arranged for the plane to land in Tibet, said his superiors are going crazy trying to find Wu.” Jonah said, almost giddy at the chaos their little operation had sown.

“Any distraction or drain of resources from the fight against US forces is a welcome distraction as far as I’m concerned,” thought Jonah. “I just hope the PLA won’t look to invade Thailand next.”

Thirty minutes later, their vehicle arrived at the safe house and Jonah led Sebastian up the stairs to the second-story office where they were holding Wu. As they entered the hallway, a secretary seated below a corporate sign that read Southeast Shipping smiled and hit a buzzer under her desk, which unlocked a door to her right. The two of them walked through the opening towards the two rooms they had set up for the interrogation. Jonah led Sebastian into the first room, the observation area, where a multitude of computer monitors and other equipment was carefully arranged. From here, they could watch everything happening inside the interrogation room.

Mr. Wu’s hands and feet were taped to a chair that was suspended in the air by a chain anchored to the ceiling. This technique caused Mr. Wu to be tilted forward at a 45-degree angle, causing a sense of weightlessness and further adding to the confusion that their subject would be experiencing. Inside the SDG, it would feel as if he were floating or falling, depending on how his mind was reacting to the images and sounds being thrown at it.

“I want Mr. Wu lowered back to the ground and his restraints removed,” Sebastian ordered. “Take the SDG off him as well and have someone prepare some tea. Now it’s time for me to earn my keep and have a discussion with Mr. Wu.”

While several agents began to get Wu set up, a pot of tea was heated up in the observation room. Dr. Roberts prepared his concoction of drugs. He had two methods of introducing the drug into a person: through a shot, or in a drink of some sort. Knowing that Wu would most likely be thirsty and that he would be eager to eat and drink something, Sebastian opted to introduce the drug via the tea he was having prepared.

Dr. Roberts knew that Wu was fluent in Russian as well as English, so he chose to use Russian to try to keep the Islamic militants ruse alive. Sebastian’s cover story was that he was a hostage negotiator, sent by a Russian company to help secure his release. This would be the genesis of their meeting and how he would start the questioning.

Twenty minutes later, Wu was seated at the table and ready to begin. Opening the door, Dr. Roberts walked in carrying a cup of hot tea and a small tray with some food indigenous to the western regions of China, where the Chinese Islamic militants were known to operate.

“The CIA really went to great lengths this time to ensure this deception is as real as possible,” Sebastian thought with admiration.

A man who appeared to be of Chinese descent stood in the corner, acting as a guard. Dr. Roberts sat down at the chair across from Wu. His subject lifted his head slightly. His eyes looked bloodshot and exhausted.

Lifting his head slightly, Wu looked around the dimly lit room to see if he could possibly identify where he was. His captors’ accent sounded like they were from southern China, not from the western portion of the country, where most of China’s Muslim population resided. Yet everywhere he looked, he saw items that suggested he was being held by an Islamic militant group. The guard in his room would stop to pray at the appropriate times of the day. When the guard wasn’t glaring at him, Wu observed him reading the Qur’an, and his captors either spoke Arabic or Mandarin and Uyghur dialects.

As his gaze drifted back down to the floor, his thoughts began to race.

“I don’t know if I can take much more of this. Who the heck are these guys and what do they want with me?” Wu thought as a new person walked into the room.

As he surveyed the figure before him, he tried to figure out if that man was of European or Russian descent. Wu was suddenly distracted when he smelled the food being brought in, and his stomach grumbled. “This must be a trap,” he thought. “I’m being interrogated… but by whom?”

The European-looking man placed the meal on a small table next to Wu. He smiled warmly and had a look of genuine concern on his face.

“Mr. Wu, I am sincerely sorry for the way these animals have been treating you,” Dr. Roberts said in perfect Russian. “My name is Ivanov. I work for a hostage rescue company that has been contracted to try and obtain your freedom from the Islamic State,” he said, which elicited a surprised look from Wu. He clearly had no idea who had kidnapped him.

Pushing the tray of food and tea towards him, he said, “Please, eat and drink. I am sorry you have been dealt with so horribly. I will do my best to ensure that you are given proper food, water, and more humane treatment. Do you know how long you have been held here?” he asked, wanting to see how’s Wu’s sense of time had developed.

“I don’t know, maybe a week or two. Can you tell me what happened?” he asked, almost pleading as he quickly ate the meager amount of mutton kebab and naan that Ivanov had brought him. He then downed the entire cup of tea, despite it still being rather hot. The life in his eyes started to return a bit; he began to feel better with some food in his belly. Just as he was about to start asking more questions of the hostage negotiator, he suddenly felt a little bit lightheaded. Then, for some reason, he felt a lot happier, euphoric even.

The negotiator responded, “You’ve been in captivity for nearly five weeks.”

Wu burst into tears.

“Why are you crying, Mr. Wu?” asked Dr. Roberts in a comforting tone. “You have done nothing wrong. Your capture was not your fault. It took many weeks, but eventually Chairman Zhang Deijang was able to track you down and contacted my firm to work on getting you released. I’ve been authorized to provide your captors with a large sum of money if they release you. I am confident we will be able to get you back to China within the week.”

Wu seemed to perk up at this comment, though the drugs were clearly working their magic now. He suddenly felt incredibly chatty and started asking all manner of questions to find out more information about the status of the war.

Knowing that this was the time to start asking his questions, Sebastian began his initial approach. “Mr. Wu, can you tell me what is supposed to happen next in Korea?”

Wu looked at him for a second and then smiled drunkenly as he answered, “If things went according to plan, the Americans will push our forces past the Yalu River, and then we will spring our counterattack. We have allowed the Americans to naively believe they are winning in Korea, driving our forces out of the country while we lure them further into our territory. A special trap is waiting for them….”

The two of them continued to talk for three more hours about what China had prepared for the Allies in Korea. Finally, Sebastian changed the topic. “How is China going to deal with the US Pacific Fleet? Won’t they prevent your plan from working?” he asked.

Wu just grinned at this simple, yet benign question. “We have thought about that for years,” he said. “During the war with Vietnam, we tested a series of new anti-ship missiles that we will unleash on the Pacific Fleet. What the Americans do not know is that we have built an armada of drones that we will use to attack the Americans—”

“—What exactly do you mean by a drone armada?” Sebastian interrupted. “How are you going to be able to get past the American anti-aircraft systems? Their Aegis system is nearly impregnable.”

Wu just laughed at that suggestion. The drugs were clearly still having their effect on him. He was almost giddy with excitement of the trap they had laid for the Americans. “We are simply going to overwhelm their system. They may be able to shoot down 500 anti-ship missiles, but can they shoot down 1,000, or 2,000 missiles? No system is impregnable, and the Americans are about to discover that firsthand.”

Mr. Wu laughed some more before continuing, “The Americans believed our attack on their two supercarriers was the best we could throw at them, but we only sent them a small portion of what we have available. We wanted to make them think we were unable to pull off a complex attack to sink their fleet, but the next attack will have a significantly different result.”

As he concluded, his eyes drooped. The side effects of the drug were now in full swing, lulling Wu to sleep before Sebastian had been able to extract everything he was after. As Wu’s head dropped down to his chest and he fell asleep, Sebastian signaled for the guard to take him to a small cell where they would allow him to sleep for a few hours.

When he woke up, he would be given some more of Dr. Roberts’ truth serum, and they would continue their discussion. In the meantime, Sebastian needed to write up what he had learned so far and get this information disseminated up the chain of command, so they could warn the Allies in Korea of what was going to happen next.