The Mandarin Club

by Gerald Felix Warburg

  The pitch itself Mickey saved for the coffee. He and Lee had slipped away when the others shifted tables during dessert, small groups milling about, drifting out for a cigarette or to use the facilities. The two of them had headed out into the courtyard for a smoke, Mickey steering away from the dining area that was surely wired for sound. They ambled across the plaza and found a bench under the trees, near the dance hall where a Donna Summer tune was pulsing. Amidst the cacophony of sounds and the crowds milling about, it seemed a surprisingly safe spot. The noise and bustle provided perfect cover for what Mickey needed to say.

  He was clear-headed as the moment approached, there on a bench under a canopy of lantern-lit trees, small insects darting through the shafts of light. They spoke briefly of sports and road trips, various pleasures they had once shared, common ground from campus days. Then, very deliberately, Mickey backed once more into the subject that had hung over them for years. China and America. Beijing and Washington. Duty and country, again.

  “Dangerous times,” Mickey said.

  “Yes, dangerous times,” Lee repeated.

  “How long will you stick this out?”

  “What do you mean?

  “The Foreign Ministry, your career. If the hard-liners gain the upper hand, there won’t be much of a future here for voices of reason. Your way may be suspect.”

  “My way? And what is ‘my way,’ Mickey?”

  “Oh, that’s right, Lee. I forgot. You Chinese aren’t allowed to have an individual conscience. It’s only about collective will and all that crap.”

  Mickey hadn’t meant to bait him. It wasn’t in the script they’d rehearsed at Langley. But the hour for improvisation had arrived.

  “I have taken my stand.” Lee steadied himself as he pulled on his Camel.

  “I know. I respect you for that.”

  “You know? What exactly do you know, old friend? That we’re just little pieces somebody else pushes around the chessboard? That we’re each being used, even as we try to do good?”

  “Try to do good?” Mickey seized it. “That’s what I said we’d do! Remember? That last night; I said we’d be do-gooders!”

  Lee was sobering now, struggling to find firmer ground, eyeing Mickey cautiously in the dim light.

  “We did good, damn it,” Mickey continued. “We helped build bridges between our countries. We opened trade. China is a better country for it. But now there are people who want to take you back to the days of the Opium Wars.”

  “Don’t lecture me, Mickey,” Lee said, rolling his stiff neck. “I’m getting too old for it. I fight them every day.”

  “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “What you don’t understand is that even as we become more modern, the young people are more fanatically nationalist. They see modernization as simply a means to renew ideological struggle. The new regime believes it deeply. They saw what happened to the Soviets. They’re way too smart to ever allow it to happen here. That’s why they are purging elites for political correctness. That’s why they’ve lately been pouring billions into the security services, buying them whatever they want. It looks like more wealth means more repression, not less. We are victims of our own success.”

  “I understand that, Lee. But you’ve done a lot. You’ve fought the good fight. Couldn’t you do more if you, if—”

  “Don’t, Mickey. Please don’t. I’ve made my place.”

  “You’ve had guts. We know your actions took incredible courage. We know all that you’ve done to try to help the situation.”

  “What is this we crap?” Lee said without looking at him. “It’s just you and me on this bench.”

  “You’re in great danger here. You’ve risked your life for a cause—trying to help your country progress without being dominated by a new bunch of Cold Warriors.”

  “Please, old friend. I ask you to stop this talk.” Lee kicked at the gravel with the toe of his shoe. Mickey could barely hear him now, right at his side. “You are such an innocent.”

  “Innocent? After all the shit I’ve done? All the little errands for the Ministry, for my father-in-law, for Telstar? My innocence died long ago.”

  “Don’t get involved.”

  “I’m already involved. I got involved the first time I made a deal. And I sure as hell got involved after somebody tried to blow us up in Washington.” Lee was growing more agitated, but Mickey ignored him, barreling ahead in a rush. “It’s me asking!”

  “Asking what?” Lee countered.

  “Asking you to help us understand what the hell is going on. So nobody does something stupid and we blow up half the planet in a dispute over some goddamn little island.”

  “It’s Branko, isn’t it?” said Lee, aghast. “Branko put you up to this.”

  “We need to stick together.” Mickey was making it up now, freelancing, in way over his head. “We need to stick together. For our kids’ sake.”

  “I have no children.”

  “This whole country is full of children who share your vision of a more open society. They’re all our responsibility.”

  Lee studied the paper lanterns overhead a long time, squinting, as if to measure the distance between lights. Bursts of conversation rang out from the wedding revelers. Groups from the party ambled by, oblivious to their heated quarrel, as the disco band played on.

  “I am touched by your concern,” Lee said. “But let me be clear, so I don’t leave wondering. What exactly are you asking of me?”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow.” Mickey blurted it out.

  “I know. I’m supposed to see your delegation off at the airport.”

  “I mean leaving.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not coming back—ever.” Mickey gestured about them. “I’m leaving this whole world behind.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m taking my boys home—home to America. Branko’s arranged it.”

  “And what exactly do you expect me to do?”

  Mickey said it is baldly as he could. “Just leave.”

  “I am Chinese, Mickey. . .”

  “I’m authorized to make whatever arrangements you want to get you out of the country, or even slip you onto our plane tomorrow. Lee, it’s the best way—”

  “I am Chinese. I don’t wish to play any more of your American games. I am sick of it all.” Lee sighed. “Our guys, your guys. Our military, your military. You arm our enemies to the teeth. You buzz us with spy planes. Then you act surprised when we take offense. I don’t want some stupid war over Taiwan. Why can’t you just leave us alone?”

  “Some of your people are trying to sabotage the summit. We need to figure it out now, before it risks sparking something larger.”

  “You want me to abandon my country? To go sit in Langley and educate your spies while they feed me Happy Meals?”

  “Not just that—”

  “It’s a great life a traitor lives.”

  “What good can you do dead? Stop deluding yourself, Lee. That bomb at Rachel’s firm was meant for us. Somebody wants you out of the picture in the worst way. You want to be a fucking martyr? Well, that wasn’t the deal. That’s not what we promised each other years ago. We were going to live life.”

  Lee fell silent. They seemed quite alone, even amidst the noise and the passing crowds. After a long while, he asked again: “What precisely do they want to know?”

  “Have you heard of the ‘Red Dragons’?”

  Lee nodded.

  “In the Second Directorate over at the Defense Ministry, they tell me,” Mickey said. “Supposedly a buncha hard-liners with powerful allies in the bureaucracy, a buncha guys who spend their days coming up with novel ways to screw up U.S.-China relations.”

  “Yes, Mickey,” he said. “I have to deal with their little games every day.”

  “We figured. Well, Langley is desperate to get some greater kind of transparency on their operations, to find out how they exploit divisions between political factions. And they’ve got to know more abo
ut this threat to the summit.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “They need a roadmap. They have some sense what these guys are up to. They don’t really know the who, and where, and how it’s being done.”

  “So you want me to infiltrate this PLA cell just so your president can secure his little photo opportunity at the summit?”

  “Lee, we need you to help identify them. Maybe help avert some disaster.”

  “And after that? Would you try to eliminate them? A dozen more will rise in their place, like weeds.”

  “No. They just need to track them. Listen in. Whatever the hell our intelligence community does for a living. Target assets. Intercept cell phones. Capture e-mail.”

  Lee was shaking his head, burying his face in his hands. “I’m tired, Mickey. I’m so tired of the game.”

  “Listen. You’ve got two options as I see it. And this is me talking, not some professional spook. One, you can try to get out now, while you can still do some good. Before they pull another crazy stunt and try to take you down, just for sport. Or, two, if you want to be a stubborn asshole, do it your way. Stay, if you insist. But try to get inside and share some insight with our people here. Maybe we can help counter their plans, cover your backside some way. But you gotta maintain contact with us. Branko’s complaining that you’ve rebuffed every approach for months. You’re at greater risk each day.”

  Lee regarded him intently, his eyes full of sorrow, the noise of the band pulsing through the courtyard. “Yes, Mickey, I am in danger here. And if the CIA is involving amateurs like you, I am in greater danger than even I suspected.”

  “Lee, I would never betray you,” Mickey whispered.

  Lee regarded him carefully before he replied. “You know, I lied to you once.”

  “What?”

  “I was drunk. At that hamburger bar. The Oasis? I was drunk and scared.”

  “You lied to me?”

  “I lied, yeah. When I said that someday I would betray you all.”

  “You lied?”

  “I won’t. Maybe I thought I would have, could have, years ago. Maybe I would have done it out of some wrong-headed sense of patriotism. Like my father.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Experience has changed me. Tiananmen changed me. I won’t.”

  “I remember the night. You scared the shit outta me.”

  “I won’t betray you. But how can I do what you ask? To stay and spy on my own people?” Lee said. “I am Chinese, part of a great and ancient civilization.”

  “I understand.”

  “Without that, I am nothing. If that means I must leave, then let it be so. Maybe that is my duty.”

  “We will always honor you.”

  “Honor?” Lee scoffed. “What do we think that really means these days?”

  “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “To flee?”

  “It may be the one truly patriotic act you can perform.”

  “Sure,” Lee muttered, his shoulders sagging. He seemed broken, and Mickey feared little could be done to repair him. So Mickey buried himself in the details, hurriedly explaining Branko’s audacious plan to get Lee and Mickey’s boys onto the delegation’s plane. So simple, yet so remarkably bold.

  They sat a while longer in the shadows of a few leafy trees, the passersby quite oblivious as sound cascaded all about them. In the end, Lee seemed to give up. He consented to the exit strategy Mickey detailed for the very next day.

  They would leave the U.S. Embassy together. A diversion would be created at the airport, and the ploy would unfold right there in the departure lounge, Lee’s absence going unnoticed until after the U.S. Air Force plane and Senate delegation were heading east in international airspace across the Pacific.

  Lee was fatalistic, though, as if someone had died. Mickey could see it, recognizing the grave danger inherent in this final resignation. So, when they said good-bye some minutes later after rejoining stray members of their party, Mickey found no comfort in their resolution. Mickey sensed that this was the last time for them, that they would not speak again—that this was an end, a despairing end to a quarter century of friendship across a great divide.

  The next morning, the Beijing dawn broke stale and gray; it was the fourth of July. A thick layer of formless clouds obscured any possibility of sunshine. At home in his apartment, Mickey was ashen. He’d slept only in brief patches, staring at the alarm from the couch in the den. He had packed and repacked the one bag he would bring, taking great care not to include anything that might trigger suspicion if it was searched.

  Old songs floated through his head, haunting melodies about leaving home—Joan Baez, John Lennon. He was leaving, forever. The lyrics had made it real to him in the heart of that last night in China. He had awoken around four a.m with a sudden need. Photographs—he wanted some baby pictures, and went silently into the master bedroom in search of an album. Mei Mei was sleeping soundly. He lingered for several minutes, watching her, feeling guilty now for the first time, despite years of weathering her contempt.

  He felt sorry—sorry for the failure of their long-ago dreams. He felt ashamed of his calculation, even as he stood at the threshold, preparing to spirit their two sons away. He could justify it all. He could justify fleeing with the boys to give them a more promising future. It was the best move for them, he had convinced himself, even as he questioned the enormity of the act.

  How in God’s name do you just walk away from your life? He gazed about the room, taking it all in once more. Then he slipped away.

  He got the boys up early, had them dressed and out the door before Mei Mei awoke. They were off to the pancake breakfast at the American Embassy. After seeing their father off at the airport, the boys were ostensibly going to return to the apartment with a family friend from the Embassy staff. Mickey had reconfirmed everything the night before with Mr. Peck, his Embassy control officer, who was elated by his apparent success in re-enlisting Lee. It would be a coup, the man reassured him—a major breakthrough for U.S. intelligence. “Pull it off and you’re a hero, pal.”

  Mickey wondered, though. In the flat light of the morning, he felt anything but heroic.

  Saturday was still a workday in the city, and the streets were crowded as their taxi angled its way through traffic, his boys chattering away in the back seat. They wore matching blue pants, red and white shirts, and baseball caps. A normal Saturday it seemed, as Mickey tried desperately to calm himself. His every sense was alert. Street smells of diesel fuel and cooking oil seemed intense. Sharp sounds made him jumpy, even the tooting of traffic horns. He searched every face, sizing up passing drivers.

  The Embassy gathering was desultory. The delegation members were exhausted after a week on the road. The Ambassador’s decision to low-key the affair, and the absence of most of the Chinese officialdom, drained all energy from the event. Rachel and a man from Protocol had gone ahead to the airport to clear passports and bags. The rest were left to chat listlessly, peering at their watches as they waited for departure hour to arrive. The boys played a game of catch with a tennis ball in the garden while Mickey sought out Mr. Peck for a few last words.

  The man was staring grimly at Mickey as they milled about, motioning for him to follow. Mickey saw only his back as they strode into the residence and followed into a washroom. Peck walked forward and flushed the noisy toilet, then wheeled upon him.

  “We’re fucked,” Peck whispered.

  “What?” Mickey was stunned. “Where’s—”

  “Wait.” Peck held up a hand as he motioned to the listening walls about them, then whipped out a small note pad and began to scrawl.

  “No Lee,” he wrote.

  “Where?” Mickey just mouthed the word, feeling helpless. Somehow, he had known the night before that Lee would not show.

  “No sign of him.”

  Mickey grabbed the pen. “What now?”

  Peck’s eyes narrowed as he read.

  “You GO,” h
e wrote. “GO with the boys.”

  Mickey stared at the paper. He had tried to prepare himself for this eventuality. But now he was sagging, knees weak.

  He watched as Peck added: “You get out. Today. Langley’s orders.” He even underlined it for Mickey, before adding “Lee’s on his own.”

  It was Peck’s last note before he tore the paper in pieces and threw them in the toilet. He then urinated and flushed, before walking out, a touch of professional disgust in his brusqueness.

  Now Mickey’s life shifted into slow motion. The droning voices of the Embassy party mixed with the pedantic conversations of the few Chinese diplomats present—so many words of so little interest. He craned his neck about, looking anxiously for Lee to join the rest of the Protocol guys who comprised the small Foreign Ministry escort. He took to patrolling the grounds, checking the driveway, peering beyond the Marine guards at the gated entrance, hoping against hope.

  Where the hell was Lee? Mickey tried to contact Lee on his cell phone, then made inquiries, struggling to mask his concern. But neither the Americans nor the Chinese had word of him. Mickey wanted to call. He wanted to send Peck’s people again to Lee’s residence and to his office.

  Time was up, though. Mickey had to choose: to stay and try to help his friend, to stay and sleep in the messy bed he’d made of his life? Or to make a final all-or-nothing dash, to accept Branko’s offer and abandon Lee to his fate? As the entourage shuffled their way to the three mini-buses taking them out to the airport, Mickey had to decide all over again.

  Lee was lost. Mickey was beyond caring for himself now, for his own life, for his own bleak future. It was only about the boys. They were American more than Chinese. Their future in China would forever be tainted, sons of an American barred as a spy. The boys would be scorned, raised by a cranky mother who’d openly voice the anger she felt toward their father. To his horror, it seemed quite clear. It was all about his children now—nothing more. Lee would agree. Mickey had to make a run for it.