by Lee Goldberg
“He didn’t vanish,” she said. “He was abducted by the Chinese government.”
Cuomo feigned ignorance. “Why would they do that?”
“Because he’s against President Xiao anointing himself leader for life at the party congress in November. My father believes it’s a step backward for the Chinese people. So Xiao has silenced him and hundreds of others who might oppose his ascension. That is something I couldn’t say until I was here, safe from Xiao’s retribution. I have Ian to thank for that.”
She smiled at Ian and squeezed his hand on the table. It was a smart move. Ian saw, out of the corner of his eye, a close-up of their hands on the monitor.
Cuomo narrowed his eyes at Mei and leaned forward, signaling his intent to drill down to the heart of the story. “You’re a major celebrity in China, but after your father’s disappearance, you were constantly accompanied by bodyguards, presumably for your safety. But the truth is they were actually Chinese agents making sure you never stepped out of line.”
“I was essentially a prisoner,” she said. “The only freedom I had was when I was in front of the camera, performing my part.”
Cuomo turned to Ian. “And that’s where you came in. What happened next?”
“One night on the set, she slipped me a note saying that she wanted to defect, that it was the only way she could make sure the truth got out about her father.”
The essence of the story was true, though it was Mei’s mother who’d approached him and Margo. Ian wasn’t actually sure that Mei knew that she was defecting until it happened. They’d never discussed their plans with her.
Cuomo looked back at Mei. “You were taking a big chance coming forward to Ian. Why him? What did you think he could possibly do for you? He’s a writer, not a spy.”
“I knew from his books that he had the imagination to pull off my escape and I knew, from the instant I met him, that he was also someone I could trust.” She stared soulfully into Ian’s eyes and he wondered if it was true.
“What about you, Ian?” Cuomo asked. “Why did you stick your neck out to help her?”
“Because she wasn’t just playing the character that Straker rescues anymore. She’d become her,” Ian said. “I’m not Straker but he lives within me. His values are my values. He wouldn’t walk away from Mei and neither could I, not if I wanted to live with myself.”
It sounded so good that Ian almost believed it himself. He didn’t dare glance at Margo because he knew he’d see her choking back laughter.
“C’mon, Ian,” Cuomo said, pointing his pen at him. “You had to know that was insane. There’s a big difference between writing about an action hero and being one.”
Not as much as you’d think, Ian thought.
“I’m not an action hero and never will be. I tell stories. So that’s what I did. I tweaked the plot,” Ian said. “I took a car chase scene that she was in and rewrote it as her means of escape. When her bodyguards watched her speed away for the cameras, they didn’t realize that she wouldn’t be coming back.”
“Or that you were in the car, too,” Cuomo said. “How did you get her out of Hong Kong?”
“I’ve met a few real-life spies in my research and I reached out to them for assistance.” Meaning he’d asked Margo to get word to her CIA contact in Hong Kong to make the arrangements. “But how we actually fled the country is top secret, for obvious reasons.”
Cuomo didn’t press the issue. “You two had quite an extraordinary adventure, like something from one of your books. Maybe that’s where we’ll learn the rest of the story someday.”
Ian smiled. “You never know.”
But Ian did. Cuomo was right.
CHAPTER FIVE
Fox News, Studio J. 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York City. July 12. 10:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
Their last interview of the day was on The Real Story with Dwight Edney, the highest-rated show on Fox News. Ian, Mei, and Edney sat on chrome stools at a white counter that resembled a kitchen island—Edney at one end with Mei and Ian to his right. Behind them was a video wall that displayed an ever-changing array of animated red, white, and blue graphics that repeatedly spelled out Edney’s name in massive letters against the backdrop of an American flag.
Ian figured the story of their escape from Hong Kong would be red meat for Edney, a chance for the conservative pundit to show off his patriotism and rail against China, a frequent target of the barbed monologues that opened his show.
Edney wore his usual double-breasted pin-striped suit, an array of papers spread out in front of him that he marked with a gold-plated Montblanc pen, a signature part of his act. He had plump, rosy cheeks and a thin beard that looked like it had been drawn on his round, chubby face with a Sharpie to indicate that he actually had a chin.
A Maryland native in his early forties, Edney flaunted hair a shade of brown not found in nature and he spoke with a nonspecific southern accent of his own creation, one easily and often lampooned by comedians. In fact, Ian was having a hard time not adopting the accent himself as he responded to Edney’s questions, which were virtually the same ones they’d already answered on six other programs.
“Straker wouldn’t walk away from her and neither could I,” Ian said, finishing his rote response to Edney’s last query. “Not if I wanted to live with myself.”
“Because you are an American,” Edney said, “and you carry with you the enduring values of freedom and democracy that is our country’s lifeblood.”
“That must be it,” Ian said and saw Margo, standing behind the robotic cameras, pretending to stick a finger down her throat. The only other person behind the cameras was the stage manager, a chubby guy in his fifties wearing a headset microphone.
Edney turned to Mei, who sat between him and Ian. “Basically, what you’re telling us is that after your father’s arrest on unspecified charges, you became a prisoner of the communist state. The bureaucrats allowed you to act in a big Hollywood movie as a form of global propaganda to perpetuate the lie that the Chinese people have creative freedom.”
“I only had the illusion of freedom,” Mei said. “I couldn’t live like that. Nobody can. So I had a choice. Either escape that oppression or be slowly crushed by it.”
“Everyone in Red China is a prisoner of oppression,” Edney said. “That is the nature of communism.”
“I realize that now,” she said.
“That’s an incredible story.” Edney gathered his scattered papers, stacked them, and shifted his gaze back to Ian. “It’s like a plot from one of your books.”
“It’s even better than one of mine. I might have to steal it.” Ian smiled and waited for Edney to thank them for being his guests and then go to commercial.
“If you do,” Edney said, “you’re going to have to make some changes.”
Ian had put such a nice button on the interview that he was surprised that Edney was belaboring the point. Perhaps Edney still had a couple of seconds to kill before the commercial break. Well, Ian could roll with it.
“It’s going to need more action and a lot more sex,” Ian said, mainly because there wasn’t any sex in his story. There hadn’t been for way too long.
“I don’t think that’s the problem,” Edney said. “What it really needs is a more sympathetic heroine. Because, let’s be honest, who is going to care about her?”
Mei was startled by the remark, her eyes widening in disbelief. Ian felt an immediate need to protect her even as he realized, with an aching dread, that the entire pleasant interview had been a setup to soften them for the attack that was about to come.
“I care,” Ian said. “Enough that I risked my life for her.”
Edney dismissed Ian’s remark with a wave. “That’s because you’re sleeping with her. You were blinded by lust. To the rest of us, she’s the spoiled daughter of a corrupt businessman who made billions exploiting cheap Chinese labor, propping up a communist regime, and taking jobs from American workers. And now we’re supposed to
feel sorry for her?” Edney shook his head at the camera and then smirked at Mei. “How stupid do you think Americans are?”
Mei glared furiously at him. “I lost everything.”
Edney sneered. “You deserved it, honey.”
Mei slapped Edney across the face so hard that it knocked him off his stool. She ripped the tiny microphone from her blouse and stormed off the set, marching past Margo and the dumbfounded stage manager to the studio door, slamming it closed behind her. Ian removed his microphone and hurried after her.
“Wait.” Margo grabbed his arm as he passed. “I want to see this.”
They both turned to face the set. The stunned stage manager hadn’t moved and was engaged in some urgent, whispered conversation with someone on his microphone.
Edney got to his feet, holding a hand to his bleeding nose, and yelled at Mei as if she were still around to hear him. “Go back to China and work for a few years in one of your father’s sweatshops, you spoiled bitch, then you can come crying to me about oppression. We’ll be back after this . . .”
The show went to a commercial for a drug that controlled irritable bowel syndrome, a product that Ian believed was a perfect match for the show. The stage manager rushed up to deal with Edney while Ian and Margo made their discreet, but hurried, exit from the studio.
“He makes a good point,” Margo said as they walked down a bare, dimly lit corridor that led to the emergency exit from the building.
“You’re forgetting that we have Mei to thank for saving the president’s life and preventing the White House from becoming the Chinese embassy,” Ian whispered, just in case there were microphones attached to the security cameras in the corridor. “She sacrificed everything for our country.”
“Edney doesn’t know that,” Margo said. “But I do, and you know something? I still agree with him.”
Ian gave her an incredulous look. “You agree with Dwight Edney?”
“Don’t spread it around,” Margo said. “I could lose my lesbian membership card.”
“I’m sure there are conservative lesbians out there.”
“Of course there are,” Margo said. “They’re as common as leprechauns.”
They reached the fire exit, which opened onto an alley behind the building, and then they walked briskly out to the Avenue of the Americas, where their limo was waiting, the engine running. Mei was already in the back seat, her face red with rage. They slid in beside her, and Ian told the driver to take them back to the Grand Hyatt.
“That was my last interview,” Mei said. “Ever.”
“Good idea,” Margo said, scrolling through something on her phone screen. “That one will be hard to top.”
“It was a disaster,” Mei said. “He humiliated me in front of the world.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Ian said. “There are a lot of people who’ve dreamed of slapping Dwight Edney and you actually did it.”
“Ian’s right,” Margo said. “It’s only been five minutes and you’re already trending on Twitter.”
“I’m what?” Mei asked.
Margo showed Mei the screen of her phone. “You’re mentioned in 7,787 tweets. Just wait until somebody uploads a video clip of that segment. You’ll be a viral sensation.”
And less than an hour later, Wang Mei was.
It was the slap seen around the world. The YouTube video notched fifteen million views over the next forty-eight hours.
And by the end of the week, Pinnacle Pictures resumed production of Straker in Los Angeles, brought Wang Mei in to continue her role, and issued a press release that supported her “courageous escape to freedom from an oppressive regime.” However, Ian was informed through his agent that he wasn’t welcome on the set or on the Pinnacle lot, not even as a guest on the studio tour, because his “dick-driven, batshit-insane behavior” got the Straker crew thrown out of China, cost the production millions of dollars, and nearly killed the movie.
At least there weren’t any process servers waiting for him when he got home.
CHAPTER SIX
Fox News, Studio J. 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York City. July 16. 10:02 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
It had been a long, horrible week for Dwight Edney. Not only did the Wang Mei clip go viral, but so did a Saturday Night Live skit about the notorious incident, with Melissa McCarthy playing him with an absurd southern accent and a beard that was drawn on her face with a Sharpie. In the skit, Edney was slapped so hard that he was sent backward in time to the Stone Age, where his political views were enthusiastically embraced by the Neanderthals, all of whom had his same hair color and accent.
But what really infuriated Edney was that the two videos drew a much larger audience than his show. Now he was going to get his revenge. He faced the camera, tapping his pen on the stack of papers in front of him.
“By now, you’ve all seen me getting slapped by Wang Mei, the spoiled Chinese movie star and billionairess who says that she fled her country to escape oppression. At least that’s the story she’d like you to believe. Tonight I can reveal the real story. Mei is one of dozens of Chinese actors, singers, and sports figures who are under investigation by the communists for using yin-yang contracts. What are those? They’re like a mobster’s two sets of books and just as criminal. Mei made everybody she worked for draw up two contracts for her, one real and one fake, to hide what she was really paid. I have her yin-yang contracts for Straker right here.”
Edney held up a sheaf of papers in each hand and went on to explain that the fake Straker contract paid her 10 million yuan, or $1.5 million, for three weeks’ work while the real, secret contract paid her four times as much.
The Chinese government only saw the fake contract, allowing Mei to avoid paying nearly 8 million yuan in taxes on her salary for the film. She reportedly owed the government close to 100 million yuan in back taxes.
“Wang Mei was facing imminent arrest for tax evasion and probably years in prison. That’s why she manipulated Ian Ludlow into helping her escape from Hong Kong.” Edney smiled into the camera. “I don’t blame Ludlow, a starstruck author, for falling into her honey trap and being bamboozled by a common criminal. But I saw right through her and I’m betting that you did, too. That, my friends, is the real story. I don’t expect the left-wing radicals at Pinnacle Studios to fire Wang Mei from Straker, so tonight I am calling on the Justice Department to investigate the studio for blatant violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the financing of the movie.”
Edney smiled, pleased with himself, and then spent the rest of the show attacking the president for allowing NATO to use American taxpayers as their ATM. It was time, he said, for Europe to pay for their own protection and for the president to invest those billions of dollars instead in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. During the final commercial break, Edney got a text on his iPhone. His mother was waiting for him at home.
That was never good news. Cloris Edney came into Manhattan from the Hamptons only if she had orders to give him.
As soon as the show was over, he got into his limo and headed straight to his Upper East Side apartment building that overlooked Central Park.
Edney stepped into the elevator and immediately smelled his seventy-two-year-old mother’s clinging, faintly nauseating scent, a mix of flowery perfume and the smoke from her hand-rolled cigarettes. It was how he imagined a rose garden would smell if somebody covered it with fertilizer, doused it with gasoline, set it on fire, and then put out the flames with buckets of horse piss.
Her scent was even stronger when he stepped into his apartment, which, after his third divorce, he’d decorated like the home of a British lord in dark wood, leather furniture, and oil paintings of landscapes and fox hunts. This was a man’s world.
He found Cloris Edney sitting at the bar in his game room, smoking one of her cigarettes and nursing a brandy. The room was dominated by a pool table that he never used and a big-screen TV for watching football games and porn.
“W
hat have I told you about smoking in my house?” Edney took the cigarette from her hand, tossed it in the sink behind the bar, then went looking for the can of Glade Cashmere Woods air freshener that he kept specifically for her visits. “Isn’t it bad enough you killed Dad with it?”
“Your father didn’t die from secondhand smoke. He died from all the solvents he inhaled in the cleaning business,” she said. “Smoking saved me. The chemicals couldn’t get past the charcoal in my lungs.”
He found the Glade under the sink, but before he could spray it, she said: “But I will kill you with my bare hands if you spray that in this room while I’m sitting here.”
“You’re a feeble old lady,” Edney said. “Your days of killing are over.”
But he put the can away out of respect, since she had once been pretty good at killing, and he reached instead for a glass to pour himself a few fingers of Scotch.
“Is that how you thank me for giving you Wang Mei’s yin-yang contracts?” she asked.
“Were they real?”
“Does it matter? Consider it a gift from the Kitchen.” She reached into the large Chanel purse that was resting on a barstool, pulled out a fat manila envelope, and set it on the bar top. “Now they want you to shift your rhetoric in a new direction.”
Unlike other Russian sleeper agents, Dwight Edney didn’t have to worry about setting up clandestine meetings with his handler—because his handler was his mother. He could meet her anywhere, anytime, without arousing any suspicion. She’d once passed him a package of secret, coded documents on the street outside FBI headquarters just for the “fuck you” fun of it. The big drawback to the arrangement, though, was that Edney was a forty-year-old man who still took orders from his mother.
His parents were trained from childhood in Russia to become “espionage colonists” in America—sleeper agent couples that the GRU hoped would breed generations of deeply embedded spies in all levels of American culture.
Harold and Cloris Edney had arrived in Maryland in the mid-1970s and started a housecleaning and custodial business in Washington, DC, that allowed the two spies free, unfettered access to the empty homes and offices of politicians, lobbyists, reporters, and even several law-enforcement agents.
