photographs of the athletes that had festooned the walls were replaced by officially sanctioned pictures of the holy trinity of Sun Yat-sen, Mao and Chou En-lai. China’s burgeoning bureaucracy, ever hungry for more room, now filled the building overlooking the Birdcage, the popular name for the unique Olympic stadium.
Not that the view from the fourth floor this afternoon was one that might adorn the cover of a magazine, thought Wan Ng. Beijing’s brownish haze had reduced the landmark to a mere chimera even though it was less than a quarter of a mile distant. A combination of coal-fueled industry, vehicle emissions and lethargic natural circulation rendered Beijing’s air among the most foul on earth. A system of alternating days when the massive number of government employees might drive into the city, a lottery for license plates to restrict the number of vehicles on the roads and a requirement that all autos and trucks must have an “environmentally friendly” sticker to enter past the Fifth Ring Road had done little to ameliorate the air quality. The fact a thriving black market dispensed the stickers to anyone willing to pay was only part of the problem.
Poisonous air was the least of Ng’s concerns this afternoon. The tone of the call he had gotten from Undersecretary Chin Diem summoning him here had lacked the congratulations for a job well done. True, Ng had lost the men assigned to him and had made international news for the chase through the canals of Venice. But he had brought the object of the mission back with him even though its theft had caused a worldwide uproar.
So what?
The men he had left behind could hardly be identified as Chinese nationals. Even if the Italians possessed the technology to compare their features with scans of their American passports, it would be months before the authorities realized the papers were forgeries.
Still, Diem was unhappy for some reason. Not knowing that reason made Ng nervous. One thing was certain: meeting the undersecretary here rather than in Diem’s sumptuous office with a view of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City beyond, haze permitting, meant there would be no record of either the meeting itself or the subject to be discussed, a rarity in a society where the affairs of the lowest citizen were subject to scrutiny.
Uneasily, Ng watched a procession of three Shuanghuan CEO’s, midsized SUVs, pull up to the building’s entrance below. Four dark-suited men got out of both the leading and trailing vehicles, scanned their surroundings and nodded to the driver of the second car. Crime in Beijing was almost as nonexistent as political dissent. The number of cars in the caravan of a high-level official was more a testimony to his importance and current standing in the governmental hierarchy than his need for security. Should a bureaucrat who had formerly rated three cars appear with a single-car escort, his status was clearly waning. Decline to a lone SUV augured an immediate and involuntary retirement from government service.
Ng could see the portly figure of Diem below as one of the men held the door open. He was carrying a thin attache case.
Ng turned around, facing a double bank of elevators. The one on the far left whispered open and four black suits stepped out, followed by Diem.
The undersecretary glanced around, fixing an expressionless stare on Ng. “Follow me.”
He led the entourage down a short corridor and opened a door at the end. Motioning his men to remain in the hallway, he ushered Ng inside.
Here the walls still bore Olympic posters. A metal desk and chair faced two uncomfortable-looking seats. The office was devoid of the normal photographs of wife and the single child allowed each family, or any other personal effects. Clearly, this office had been borrowed just for this meeting.
Ng was pondering the significance of that fact as Diem rounded the desk, sat and snapped open the attache case. Wordlessly, he motioned Ng to be seated. Reaching into a jacket pocket, he produced a pack of American cigarettes-Marlboros-and then a gold lighter, a knockoff of a world-famous jeweler’s design. He shook out a cigarette and lit it without offering his guest one, not a good sign.
His head circled in blue smoke, he removed a thin folder from the attache case, opened it and began to read. Ng would have bet the undersecretary had the few pages memorized. It was a common tactic among the Party’s elite. The theatrics enforced the fact the subordinate did not rate the time it would take for his superior to read the file in advance.
From somewhere behind the desk, Diem produced an exceptionally ugly porcelain ashtray and set his smoldering cigarette down. “How did the Americans know you were in the church?”
Ng felt his throat go dry. The implicit accusation could be career ending. In fact, if he was even suspected of revealing his mission, prison or worse was likely.
“I do not believe they did, Comrade Secretary.”
The use of the honorific, though passe, showed respect.
“Explain.”
“Had they known my men and I were in the church, I doubt they would have entered so obviously. They made no effort to conceal themselves.”
Diem picked up the cigarette, took a puff and returned it to the ashtray. “Do you not find it coincidental that two members of American intelligence would just happen by late at night when the church would ordinarily be closed?”
“Do we know they were American intelligence?”
Diem snorted, smoke erupting from his nose. “The woman obviously had military training, did she not? And if she had the capability to not only defeat but kill one of your armed men, we must assume her companion did also.”
“Comrade Secretary, my subsequent investigation of the credit-card records shows the man, Langford Reilly, is some sort of lawyer living in the southern United States.”
“An intelligence operative would have such cover, would he not?”
Ng had no answer.
The undersecretary was studying the short stack of papers in front of him. “Intelligence or not, the man and woman could well have seen the faces of you and your men. They could have told the police the men robbing the church were Chinese.”
“The interior of the church was too dark to see faces.”
Diem was reading from the file again. “You are Yi, are you not, from a small village in Yunnan?”
Ng hoped his face didn’t show what he felt. It was no surprise his background had been duly recorded. A file existed on every person born in China, one of the reasons for the bloated civil service. There would be a more detailed dossier for those considered to be in sensitive positions. His uneasiness came from the mention of the fact he was a member of one of China’s fifty-five ethnic minorities, people the government viewed with xenophobic suspicion.
Ng recalled his childhood in the tiny village: the walled, plank house with a sod roof held on by stones shared with his parents, his grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. As well as a number of livestock far too valuable to be left out in the elements. Neither the Great Leap Forward nor any other proclaimed program of rural modernization had reached the place. The last time he had visited, there still was no electricity or running water. It had taken hard work from sunup till dark to wrest a living from the stony soil of each family’s single small field allotted by the local commissar. Army life had been luxurious by comparison. He felt nostalgia for the place along with a strong desire to never have to live there again, a real possibility if he failed to follow whatever agenda the undersecretary had in mind.
Diem continued. “Major, People’s Liberation Army, transferred to Special Branch, Department of International Affairs three years ago, commendation for successful completion of unspecified mission eight months ago…”
Again Ng kept quiet.
Diem’s eyes flicked over the top of the file. “And I see you graduated from the American Academy.”
“That is all correct, Comrade Secretary.”
Diem nodded as though an issue had been resolved. “Yes, of course. Do you feel comfortable operating in America?”
“I have been so trained, Comrade Secretary, as you have just noted.”
The secretary paused long enough to put out his cigarette with an exaggerated stabbing motion. “Good. You are to choose such men as you think best fitted and travel to the United States, where you will observe this Reilly person and the woman. If you are convinced they have no connection with an American intelligence organization, you are to so inform me.” He held Ng’s gaze. “You will be certain before you make such a decision.”
“And if they are?”
