The Prince of Risk

19

Magnus Lee, chairman of the China Investment Corporation, exited from the elevator at the twentieth floor. He checked the direction markers and set off to his right, toward offices 2050-2075. With its industrial carpeting, fluorescent lights, and wood veneer doors, it could be any corridor in any corporate office in the world. Though it was nearly midnight, a steady stream of men and women walked past. They were smartly dressed, well coiffed, purposeful of step, every bit the equal of their Western counterparts.

As he walked, he passed beneath signs hanging from the ceiling adjacent to each office door. Written in English and Chinese, the signs read GENERAL MOTORS, IBM, MICROSOFT, EXXON. He was currently on the twentieth floor of building F-100. He was not twenty floors above the earth’s surface. He was twenty floors beneath it.

F-100 stood for “Fortune 100.” And building F-100 was one of six interconnected structures in the sprawling subterranean complex that made up the Institute for Investment Initiative, or i3. Buildings F-200 to F-500 housed companies ranked 101 to 500. A sixth building, known only as T, was reserved for special projects and companies that possessed products, technology, or intellectual property deemed to have the highest strategic value for the state.

The CIC was the tip of the iceberg, the portion above water, impressive to behold but benign. i3 was the remaining three-quarters of the iceberg, the enormous mass that remained below the surface, hidden from view, and possessing an infinite capacity for danger.

Lee had founded i3 a year after taking the reins at the China Investment Corporation. It was not enough to invest in foreign companies. Investment provided an attractive monetary return, but it was the corporations that truly benefited. The infusion of capital enabled them to hire more workers, develop new products, and expand market share in their respective industries. If China was to compete, it must develop its own industry. It must make its own automobiles and airplanes, its own computers and software, its own everything. In short, it must assemble an economic and industrial infrastructure of the highest order that not only rivaled the West’s but surpassed it.

It was a daunting task…without help.

And so he had suggested an idea to his colleagues in the Ministry of State Security.

Industrial espionage as a state-sponsored covert policy.

An aggressive campaign of systematic, targeted thefts of any and all corporate knowledge, with the goal of copying, implementing, and improving said knowledge for the benefit of Chinese business.

Five years later, Lee’s idea could be judged a success by any measure. China was able to compete with the most technologically advanced companies in America, Europe, and Japan across a wide swath of industries: automobiles, computers, microchips, even satellites and rocketry. All had made use of pirated technology to achieve their gargantuan leap forward.

For his work, he had been awarded a commission in the People’s Liberation Army and given the rank of major general in the Intelligence Division. In a few days he would learn whether he would receive a more coveted title, that of vice premier for finance, one of ten men to serve on the Standing Committee.

One of ten to rule more than 1 billion.

It took Lee another minute to reach his destination. The sign above the entry to office 2062 read CISCO SYSTEMS and was printed exactly as you might find on the cover of the company’s annual report. Lee was a stickler for detail.

Cisco Systems (No. 62), with revenues of $45 billion, was a San Jose-based manufacturer of computer hardware and software, notably routers and switches, the components that built the Internet’s backbone and speeded traffic along the information highway. It was estimated that 99 percent of all Net activity passed through at least one Cisco device.

Lee walked past row after row of executives seated at workstations. A large overhead picture of Cisco corporate headquarters occupied one wall. The company’s name was emblazoned in large block Lucite letters on another. The room’s furnishings were identical to those found at the main Cisco campus, and each worker wore a Cisco personnel badge around his neck with a genuine neck strap. The men and women seated at their terminals were even working on projects similar to those of their counterparts in California. Some were engaged in designing new routers, others in updating existing switches, and still others in keeping up with current customer orders.

But the Cisco Systems office in building F-100 was no official subsidiary. It was a clone or, more precisely, a parasite latched onto its host, copying its DNA project by project, department by department, division by division via a web of hacked e-mail servers, mirrored hard drives, tapped phone exchanges, and concealed surveillance devices in hardware, software, and physical plants. There was even a micro audiovisual transmitter in the chief executive’s office. All these devices gave Lee and his team access to 80 percent of the company’s daily business activity.

“General Lee, an honor to have you with us,” said the office director. The man had a PhD from Stanford and had logged eight years working at Cisco headquarters, including two years as assistant to the chief executive. As he approached, he held out a rectangular black unit the size of a car stereo. “I wanted you to be the first to see it. The Nexus 2000. An exact copy of Cisco’s latest and most advanced router. We’ll manufacture it under our own Bluefire label and have it ready for delivery to customers six months before Cisco.”

“Price?”

“Twenty percent below the American model.”

“Impressive.” Lee felt his cell phone vibrate and checked the screen. Urgent: An intercept from STS-1 in Iceland. “Would you excuse me?”

Lee left the room and read the transcript of a conversation that had taken place minutes earlier between Robert Astor and a woman named Penelope Evans, who he quickly gathered was Edward Astor’s personal assistant. It seemed that Edward Astor had had a partner in his investigation, and now the son was intent on speaking with her.

For a moment Lee was taken back to a day a few years earlier. Construction on the i3 complex was complete. Every month he and his team were siphoning more information from their rivals. He was at his desk when the door opened and a familiar figure entered. Lee stood at once, both thrilled and frightened.

“Copying is no longer enough,” said the premier, the most powerful man in China. “Our policy of state-sponsored industrial espionage can take us only so far. It is not enough that we succeed. The West must be seen to lose.”

Lee nodded.

“Can you do more to help us?”

“Yes,” said Lee. “I can.” For he had been harboring the same thoughts and had spent long hours thinking about how to help his country. And so he told the premier his plan, and the premier gave him his blessing.

On that day Troy was born.

Magnus Lee reread the intercept, biting his lip. It could not have come at a worse time. He had not yet revealed to anyone that Edward Astor had contacted his son about Palantir, or that there was any kind of possible breach whatsoever. And now the son was taking up his father’s crusade.

The ripples were closing in on the shore.

Troy was at risk.

Lee found a quiet corner and placed a call to New York State.

“Hello, brother,” came the strong, familiar voice.

“Hello, Shifu,” said Lee, using the respectful title for “master.” “How quickly can you find someone for me?”