Satori

before dawn, got dressed, then jotted a quick note in code, which when Haverford transliterated it would read, Zhengyici Opera, Thursday night. He rolled the thin paper into a tight cylinder and put it in the left pocket of his jacket.

On the street just as a fragile sun was coming up over the city, he made a show of stretching just as a sleepy and very grouchy-looking Xiao Smiley emerged, his arms wrapped around his chest against the cold.

Nicholai took off jogging.

The air burned his lungs and the wind stung his face, but the exercise felt good and the acceleration of his heartbeat quickly warmed him as he ran north toward Beihai Park. Workers were already out, sweeping last night’s light dusting of snow off the sidewalks, and the night-soil collectors were coming back from delivering containers of human waste out to the countryside. On the hutongs of Xidan Market, the vendors were setting up their stands and lighting small fires in braziers, stopping from moment to moment to warm their hands over the flames. The smell of charcoal was in the air.

Nicholai kept running, aware that he was leaving the chugging Smiley far behind. It wouldn’t be long, though, before the Greyhound joined the chase and caught up with him. He sped up, barely avoided a spill on a sheen of black ice, regained his balance, and kept running until he reached Beihai Park.

He slowed to a jog again and trotted along the edge of the lake.

Even in winter, the early-morning tai chi players were out, moving slowly and gracefully against the silver sky, and Nicholai was suddenly, serenely happy to be back in China again. He ran along the lakeside and then turned left on the arched bridge to the Jade Isle.

He stopped at the apex of the bridge, put his hands on the tiled rail, and stretched his legs. Looking under his arm, he saw the Greyhound running along the lake, headed toward him. Nicholai reached into his left pocket, his hand screened by his body, took out the note, and slipped it under the loose tile.

Then he finished his stretch and resumed his run, making a circuit around the White Pagoda and then heading down toward the South Gate. Smiley stood on the south bridge, cupping a cigarette in his gloved hands. Nicholai ran past him and headed back toward the hotel.

The air in the lobby felt hot and close.

Nicholai went straight to his room, coaxed some lukewarm water from the tap, and took a quick bath. He made a single cup of tea from the water in his thermos, got dressed again, and went down to the dining room, where he got more tea, a baozi, and some pickled vegetables. He enjoyed the moist, chewy warmth of the steamed bun as he thought about the “dead drop” he had made on the bridge.

Fairly confident that he had done it cleanly, he had to acknowledge the possibility that he had been caught at it, in which case he knew that the note was now in the possession of code-breakers, and that he would soon be back in a prison cell, a torture chamber, or both.

He couldn’t read Chen’s face as his handler came through the door and approached him.

“How are you this morning?” Chen asked.

“A little the worse for wear,” Nicholai answered. “And you?”

“Very good,” Chen said. “Colonel Yu would like to see you now. Are you ready to go?”

Nicholai was ready.

29

THE MONK, HIS HANDS FOLDED in front of him, stepped out of the White Pagoda.

Earlier, just after dawn, the monk known as Xue Xin had meditated in the tower and stared out the window onto the Jade Isle bridge and seen the man lean against the railing.

Now he walked slowly toward the bridge. Slowly because he did not want to appear to be in a hurry, but also because his legs were oddly bowed and he had little choice but to walk slowly.

He knew that he was risking his life, knew that there was a strong possibility that any of the other strollers in the park, or one of the tai chi players, or a street hawker, even one of the other monks might be a police spy waiting to see who came to pick up the message.

Then one of two things would happen. Either they would arrest him immediately, or they would lay back and follow him, hoping that he would lead them to the entire cell. But he knew that he wouldn’t let that happen – he was experienced enough to spot surveillance, and skilled enough to dispatch himself with his own hand should it come to that.

Xue Xin would not allow himself to be captured.

He had been captured before.

Tortured, he had learned what no man should have to learn – the sounds of his own screams – and when they returned him to the cage it was only the kindness of his cellmate that kept him alive, gave him hope when he wished to die, shared the meager handfuls of rice that were their starvation diet.

Now, ten years later, he still limped.

He knew that he shouldn’t be alive at all. His captors had decided to kill them all before the Japanese took over, so they marched them to a field outside the prison, handed them sharpened sticks, and made them dig a long trench.

When the common grave was finished, they were lined up in front of it, and Xue Xin was eager for the bullet that would end this life. But the commandant explained that they were not worthy of expensive bullets, and would be slashed and stabbed to death instead.

Then it started, a blur of silver blades and spraying blood, and Xue Xin felt himself fall backward into the trench and was glad for death. It seemed days later when he felt the dirt falling on him, and he wanted to scream that he was still alive but he swallowed his fear and pain with the dirt.

The monks came that night.

Like ghosts they padded through the fog and dug with their hands, literally pulling him from the grave. Weeks later he could stand, weeks after that he could walk, if you could call it walking. He had bad dreams every night, waking in that grave.

Now Xue Xin walked past the loosened tile in the bridge, deftly snatched the message, and tucked it into his robe. In his other hand he clutched a slim sharp blade, meant for his belly if they came for him or if he detected anyone following him.

But no one did.

He walked undetected out of the north gate into a hutong in the north-central district. Five minutes later he was in the back of a small house, squatting by the dim glow of a small radio transmitter, into which he read the coded message.

He left the house reciting, “On mani padme hung.”

The jewel is in the lotus.

30

THE BLADE PLUNGED deep into the victim’s belly.

The man gasped and then tried to stuff his innards back into his stomach as he staggered through the alley near Luang Prabang’s crowded marketplace, but it was far too late.

The Cobra jerked the knife back, turned away, and walked quickly out the dark alley into the streets of the northern Laotian town.

It all had to do with something called “Operation X,” but the Cobra didn’t really care. All that mattered was the money, and the payments from this client were always prompt and reliable.

The Cobra fingered a small medallion and could feel the outline of the embossed face and the script -

Per tu amicu.

For your friendship.