by Adam Brookes
And then the whole room was moving, and Battle Scar was at her side, and her mother was taking her arm and they were being walked out.
There followed a short tour of the compound, with a smart young man giving potted explanations of the architecture, the elegant stonework, the notable eaves, the European influence. Pearl suffered through it. Her father was impatient, hands in pockets, pacing. The elegant woman was there. She approached Pearl and stood beside her as they all gazed out over the garden. She gave Pearl a quizzical smile. Pearl felt a flush of self-consciousness.
“That was really impressive, back there. I thought you handled it really well,” she said. “I just wanted to say that.”
“Okay, well, thanks,” said Pearl.
“Honestly, some of them barely understand what the internet is. It’s like talking to a peasant.” She used the word, nongmin, dismissively, Pearl noted.
“Maybe we could carve out some time to meet, get to know each other a little better. I’d really like that,” the woman was saying, and Pearl realised at once how vulnerable she was to charm, and how much she mistrusted it.
“Maybe we can do that. Thanks,” said Pearl, and walked away, leaving the woman standing there alone.
And at the edges of Pearl’s mind, the realisation was growing and taking shape, gaining weight and power, and it was like ashes in her mouth.
34
Washington, DC
Mangan’s basement room was wood-panelled, with linoleum on the floor, a single bed, a rectangular window at head height—barred—a desk and a chair.
It was two in the morning. He sat, now, his chin in his hand, a cigarette in his fingers, staring at his laptop—staring at the email that lay like a silent digital scream in front of him.
Dear Michael Barclay,
I don’t know if that’s your name.
If it isn’t then maybe you could tell me your real name? Because I’m having issues with trust right now and I feel like I need to trust someone. And I’m thinking that maybe I can trust you.
Which is stupid because I only met you once in a coffee shop in Suriname and I think you were probably lying to me when you told me you were a travel journalist or whatever it was you said you were. So why should I trust you, right?
Because you seemed to know that something was going on with me, and you seemed to know something about what it was.
And if you could share I’d be super grateful, because some seriously weird stuff is happening to me right now and I literally don’t have a clue what it is or why.
Pearl Tao
Mangan sat back.
Patterson’s instructions were ringing in his head. She’d delivered them in her starchiest voice, with her flintiest expression on, quite the hardass. You’re to do nothing, Philip. You’re to stand down. Nothing, do you understand? There are other operational contingencies in play. She hadn’t even sat down, had just stood there, in this foul little room, with its smell of mouldering wood, and said what she’d been told to say.
Other operational contingencies.
He stubbed out the cigarette.
Dear Pearl,
Can I suggest we go encrypted? I think it might be wise. Open an account, and email me here.
He included a link to an encrypted email server, and an address. And waited.
The reply came an hour later, just past three.
OK. Here I am. So?
Pearl
Mangan sat and thought, then typed.
Pearl,
My real name is Philip. You are quite right, I wasn’t being wholly truthful with you. I am a journalist, but I’m not really interested in your vacation.
The truth is I’m concerned that you may be in some sort of difficulty.
The man you met in the zoo that day—I’ve been looking into who he is as part of a story I’m working on. And I’m concerned by what I’ve found. I think he might be dangerous and involved in illicit activity. And I wondered why you and your parents—they are your parents, right?—were meeting him. In a zoo, of all places.
Can you tell me anything about him? Or about your father’s connection to him?
I promise not to publish or write about anything you tell me—I’m just very concerned, and would like some reassurance you’re okay.
You say in your message that some “weird stuff” is happening to you. Can you tell me what sort of weird stuff? Perhaps I can help figure it out a little.
Philip
He lit another cigarette and waited. It was nearly four, and nothing. He lay on the bed, still clothed, pulled the duvet over himself, tried to sleep.
He awoke at nine, traffic noise coming through the window, the room stifling. He stood in the shower for twenty minutes until the water ran cold, and only once clean and dried did he check his laptop.
Dear Philip,
You seem very concerned and I am very touched by that, but now you’ve made me even more worried. Please tell me who is the man my father met at the zoo, and what “illicit activities” is he doing.
Are you maybe doing some illicit activities yourself?
I am a scientist. Did you know that? I try to imagine the world in new ways. Nothing else matters to me. That is where I live my life, in the world of mathematical language. All this other stuff, this weird stuff, is nothing to do with me. But I am starting to think that my life is not what I thought it was, and that I am in real trouble.
And I am now super-tired and am going to sleep.
Pearl
He boiled the little electric kettle and spooned instant coffee into a mug with sugar and powdered creamer.
Pearl,
I understand that you are worried. And I fear that you are right to be.
I can help you—but only if you tell me what your situation is.
Let me ask you this: does your father keep strong connections to China? Does he talk about his work with people there a lot?
Philip
A reply straight away this time.
Well, we make little trips to China via other cities, and we meet people in weird offices in Guangzhou who won’t tell me their names. Does that count?
Pearl
Mangan felt his stomach lurch, saw the future unfurling.
Pearl,
Does your father have a security clearance? Does he work on classified material?
P
He waited, sipped the coffee.
No, but I will have a clearance soon.
Pearl
It’s her, he thought. They want the daughter.
35
Beijing, China
Yip Lo Exports Ltd., supplier of plastic novelties to the European and American markets, found itself tumultuously busy. A children’s animated movie, meeting with box office success, had generated sudden and unanticipated global demand for a species of tiny, clockwork space creatures blessed with goggle eyes and Technicolor fur. China’s factories had geared up. Yip Lo’s astute purchasing staff, sensing an opportunity, readied for a foray into the vast manufacturing complexes of south-east China.
They touched down in Wenzhou, on the coast; Eileen Poon and two of her boys, Peter and Winston. They’d call their contacts and drive out into the cluster of plastics factories, take some chances, see what was what, sniff around for a deal.
And then, when business was done, it was a quick hop to Beijing, by train this time, a sleek, high-speed affair, direct. Only a brief visit, so they hadn’t checked out of their hotel in Wenzhou, where, coincidentally, they had left their phones and other devices. Eileen sat in first class, knitting, while her boys sat quietly in second, reading, planning, as the train rocketed towards the capital.
The three of them arrived at Beijing South Railway Station just after six on a cool evening. Eileen left the station first, the two boys behind, arcing and weaving in her wake. She shoved her way through the crowd. They stayed out of the subway, wary of the cameras. Eileen walked north, crossed the moat and headed for Taoranting Park. The boys circled.
&nb
sp; The evening was chilly, hinting at the winter to come, the air thick and dry, touched with grit and something sulphurous. Eileen put on her old-lady hobble, a hat and a scarf, and walked on into the gathering dark, the lights from the tide of traffic rendered soft by the haze.
Taoranting Park at dusk. Eileen, dry as a bone, stopped for a moment, listened, watched. Some 200 metres ahead of her, silhouetted against the sky, was a little pavilion of red pillars and a tiled roof. It stood at the lakeside, a place to sit on a hot summer day, to take out your erhu and play for your friends, sing a little opera, an aria or two. Su San as she’s led away for execution, perhaps. Or Yang Guifei, inebriated and dancing as she contemplates her fate.
It was colder now, the sky taking on the orange-blue wash of the city at night. She gritted her teeth and walked towards the pavilion. Peter was off to her right, hands in pockets, waiting; Winston was close by, in the trees, watching.
She walked stiffly up the steps and sat herself on a concrete bench with an old woman’s grunt and exhalation. She let a moment pass, looked out of the pavilion to Peter. She could just see his nod in the gloom. She leaned forward, and ran her hand beneath the bench. Honestly, it was like the old days, the feel of the little packet, the envelope, the film canister against your fingers, behind some brick in a wall or taped to a pipe down some sodden, filthy alley. And the bracing for whatever was to come, because that was when they took you, in the act.
Her fingers fluttered against the concrete. She leaned over further, reaching under. Where the hell was it?
Peter was there now, coming up the steps, a questioning expression on his face. She just nodded and continued to search.
“Hurry, Ma.”
She shot him a look. She was running her fingers into corners, contemplating getting down on her hands and knees. Peter was looking out from the pavilion, for Winston, perhaps. And then, there it was, three feet away from where it should have been, a pellet wrapped in plastic, no bigger than a bean, or a piece of White Rabbit milk candy. With her fingernail Eileen picked at the tape holding it to the underside of the bench; she swore softly.
And then it was done and in her pocket, and Peter was away, down the steps and disappearing into the almost dark to clear her way. She waited a beat, letting him get a little distance, then moved. Down the steps, back along the path, her heart pounding, and something like fear touching the underside of her mind with ink-black fingers. Why? Was Winston behind her? Wiry, hard Winston, with his easy smile, and his solidity, his presence? She almost turned to look, but forced herself to face forward, to walk slowly.
Ahead, Peter had almost reached the park’s front gate, readying to move out onto the street.
But then she saw he’d stopped, saw the tension in him as he sped up and moved right, cutting off his planned path.
What was there? She looked into the darkness and saw nothing. But Peter had.
And so had Winston. Because out of nowhere he was suddenly beside her, taking her arm, his grip gentle but his fingers like steel bars, and he was steering her off the path towards the trees. She shed her old woman’s gait, moving fast. They followed a walkway into a grove of cypress, pushed through and emerged on the other side. The park’s western gate was ahead of them, and beyond it on the street, a cab.
They came out of the park, Eileen breathing heavily, Winston tense. They hailed the taxi, gave the address, and the driver nosed out into the traffic. No sign of Peter.
It was a difficult night. The basement in Fangzhuang was their own safe house, off the books—not even London knew about it. It lay beneath a mouldering brick apartment block and was dark and dank and the pipes rattled, and the family who held the lease on it were long gone and asked no questions of their renters. Eileen sat on the couch, lit a beedi, blew smoke into the stale air. Winston put the kettle on, then fished in a closet for a quilt to wrap her in, because she was shaking, something he’d never seen before. They left the lights off.
“What was it?” she asked.
Winston took off his cap and put it on the table. Her sister’s boy, this one, loyal—and far more ruthless than he looked.
“I’m not sure. I just saw Peter move, and there was … I’m not sure, just a shape, a figure, moving along the edge of the park. I’m not sure.”
“Could be nothing.”
He shook his head.
“Peter doesn’t move like that for nothing.” He went to the window. “Where is he?”
“He’ll come,” she said.
“I’m worried.”
“You’re never worried.”
“I’m worried because you’re worried. What is it? This operation?”
Eileen took a long drag on the beedi.
“This operation is … different. I know,” she said.
“Why?” he said. “What’s different?”
She sighed, wondering what she could tell him.
“We’re inside,” she said. “We’re deep inside. And it’s different.”
“Different to what?”
Different, she thought, to the know-nothing Party cadres who tried to organise in Hong Kong, sitting bewildered in the old walled city years ago while she penetrated their underground cells and wrecked them one after another. Different to the mid-ranking officials in Chongqing and Wuhan who’d sell their own mothers, let alone the contents of their safes, for hookers and gambling money. Different to the military officers, the angry, under-promoted men who realised they’d done it all for nothing, the Air Force colonel who brought out condom-wrapped USB drives, popping them out of his arse in the Wan Chai Holiday Inn. Different to the fat, homicidal aerospace engineer she’d trailed around Beijing a couple of years back.
Different, because they were inside now, deep in the guts of the adversary. And these little packages contained treasure. Real treasure. Not rumour or speculation or hearsay, not data points to be injected into some turgid briefing in Whitehall or Washington months from now and then forgotten.
Eileen took out tonight’s little package and put it in a sterile bag. She thought of the rest of the night, of what might come, of searches. She walked to the darkened bedroom, knelt and, using her nails, prised from the wall a loose electrical outlet. She placed the plastic bag into the dark cavity behind and jammed the outlet back into the wall.
She went and sat on the couch, wrapped herself in the quilt again and lit another beedi. Winston sat stock still, listening.
And here she was again, the night unravelling into terror, second by leaden second, the sound of a footstep outside the window, every hiss and shudder in the pipes causing her to tense, her jaw to lock, her fragile old hands to clutch the quilt. Perhaps, she thought, we have a finite reserve of courage, a pool we draw on over a lifetime. And with each act of nerve and self-control, we deplete it. And perhaps mine, deep as it was, is now running dry.
At three they heard the squeak of a door from above. A footfall, hesitant and soft, of the sort the ear is immediately drawn to.
Winston was on his feet, flexing his fingers, moving to cover the entranceway.
Feet on the stairway now, moving slowly. Eileen swallowed, but stayed put on the couch.
A tapping at the front door.
“Anyone there?”
Silence. Winston, tense as a cat.
“Anyone there? It’s me.”
Winston was calculating, his mouth working, and then he slipped the latch and opened the door a crack and stepped back, ready to move if he had to, and the door opened slowly, to reveal Peter Poon, bug-eyed, hair awry, breathing heavily. Eileen got up and went to him and touched his arm. Winston closed the door.
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” Peter said.
“Anyone behind you?” Winston said.
“No. No, I’m sure. I’ve been going round and round for hours.”
He sat heavily on the couch, leaning his head back.
“God, I’m hungry.”
“What was it?” she said.
He shook his head.
“I don’t even know. Maybe nothing.”
“Was there someone there? In the park?”
“I thought … I don’t know. I’m just … jumpy.”
He raised his hands and let them fall in despair and resignation.
“This city …” he said. “It’s not the same. The whole place.”
She nodded, and they were all silent for a moment, and then Winston said, “Let’s go home.”
She took the plastic bag containing the tiny packet from the wall. Winston would carry, it was agreed, and they left the safe flat separately in the pre-dawn dark, Winston flitting away first, Peter and Eileen following on. There had been an early, sudden rain, and the streets were shining and Eileen smelled rainwater and fuel, and dough frying in bubbling oil from a food cart, and she wondered if she would ever be back here.
TOP SECRET STRAP 2 BOTANY—UK EYES ONLY
ANNEXE DCOPY 2/5
//REPORT
1/ (TS) Source FULCRUM addressed a further letter to C/FE. This is his fourth. It is printed below in full.
Beijing
To: Controller, Far East and Western Hemisphere,
United Kingdom Secret Intelligence Service,
Vauxhall Cross, London
Dear Friends,
Thank you for you most recent communication. I hope you will find the material I am supply to you in this device of interest. It is most valuable material, and should deliver great insight for you, if you are able fully to understand and analyse. I do not know how are your analysts, but it is worth cultivating deep understanding of Chinese affairs for they are complicated and hard for foreigners to understand. Your analysts must work hard and be diligent before they can make use of this valuable material. Otherwise, my work and its attendant dangers must be wasted.
