How the F.B.I. Cracked a Chinese Spy Ring

The agents assembled the contents of the bag like a jigsaw puzzle. Patched together, the pieces constituted two documents, one handwritten and the other machine-printed. Gunnar Newquist, an investigator assigned to the case by the N.C.I.S., spotted an English phrase at the bottom of the handwritten sheet. "DDX," he said, reading it aloud. "That's a Navy destroyer." The handwritten text turned out to be a list of naval technologies and programs: submarine propulsion networks; systems for defending against nuclear, chemical, and biological attacks; and others. On the printed sheet were instructions about going to conferences to collect information. Gaylord was certain that the two documents were tasking lists from Chinese intelligence.