adventure and giggles and … looseness. And looseness served both his biological and professional purposes. He had other things to figure out, too. Ming was not tall, scarcely five feet-151 centimeters or so, Nomuri thought, doing the conversion in his head. She was short but not really petite. There was no real obesity in China. People didn’t overeat here, probably because of the lingering memory of times when food had not been in abundance and overeating was simply not possible. Ming would have been considered overweight in California, Chester thought, but that was just her body type. She was squat because she was short, and no amount of dieting or working out or makeup could change it. Her waist wouldn’t be much less than twenty-seven inches. For her chest, 34B was about the best he could hope for … well, maybe 34C-no, he decided, B+ at most. So, a 34B bra, and medium shorts- panties-red silk, something feminine … something on the wild, whorish side of feminine, something that she could look into the mirror alone with and giggle … and maybe sigh at how different she looked wearing such things, and maybe smile, that special inward smile women had for such moments. The moment when you knew you had them- and the rest was just dessert.
The best part of Victoria’s Secret was the catalog, designed for men who really, and sensibly, wanted to buy the models themselves, despite the facial attitudes that sometimes made them look like lesbians on quaaludes-but with such bodies, a man couldn’t have everything, could he? Fantasies, things of the mind. Nomuri wondered if the models really existed or were the products of computers. They could do anything with computers these days-make Rosie O’Donnell into Twiggy, or Cindy Crawford obsolete.
One other thing, he thought. Perfume. Women liked perfume. You’d expect them to like it, especially here. The entire city of Beijing smelled like a steel mill, lots of coal dust and other pollutants in the air-as Pittsburgh had probably been at the turn of the last century-and the sad truth was that the Chinese didn’t bathe as diligently as Californians did, and nowhere nearly as regularly as the Japanese. So, something that smelled nice …
“Dream Angels,” the brand was called. It came in a perfume spray, lotion, and other applications that he didn’t understand, but he was sure Ming would, since she was a girl, and this was a quintessential girl thing. So, he bought some of that, too, using his NEC credit card to pay for it-his Japanese bosses would understand. There were skillfully arranged and choreographed sex tours that took Japanese salarymen to various places in Asia that catered to the sex trade. That was probably how AIDS had gotten to Japan, and why Nomuri used a condom for everything there except urinating. The total came to about 300 euros. The salesclerk wrapped everything and commented that the lady in his life was very lucky.
What is it today, Ben?” Ryan asked his National Security Adviser.
“CIA is trying to get a new operation under way in Beijing. For the moment it’s called SORGE.”
“As in Richard Sorge?”
“Correct.”
“Somebody must be ambitious. Okay, tell me about it.”
“There’s an officer named Chester Nomuri, an illegal, he’s in Beijing covered as a computer salesman for NEC. He’s trying to make a move on a secretary, female, for a senior PRC minister, a guy named Fang Gan-”
“Who is?” Ryan asked over his coffee mug.
“Sort of a minister without portfolio, works with the Premier and the Foreign Minister.”
“Like that Zhang Han San guy?”
“Not as senior, but yes. Looks like a very high-level gofer type. Has contacts in their military and foreign ministries, good ideological credentials, sounding board for others in their Politburo. Anyway, Nomuri is trying to make a move on the girl.”
“Bond,” Ryan observed in a studiously neutral voice, “James Bond. I know Nomuri’s name. He did some good work for us in Japan when I had your job. This is for information only, not my approval?”
“Correct, Mr. President. Mrs. Foley is running this one, and wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“Okay, tell MP that I’m interested in whatever take comes out of this.” Ryan fought off the grimace that came from learning of another person’s private-well, if not private, then his sex-life.
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 9 Initial Results
Chester Nomuri had learned many things in his life, from his parents and his teachers and his instructors at The Farm, but one lesson he’d yet to learn was the value of patience, at least as it applied to his personal life. That didn’t keep him from being cautious, however. That was why he’d sent his plans to Langley. It was embarrassing to have to inform a woman of his proposed sex life-MP was a brilliant field spook, but she still took her leaks sitting down, Nomuri reminded himself-but he didn’t want the Agency to think that he was an alley cat on the government payroll, because the truth was, he liked his job. The excitement was at least as addictive as the cocaine that some of his college chums had played with.
Maybe that’s why Mrs. Foley liked him, Nomuri speculated. They were of a kind. Mary Pat, they said in the Directorate of Operations, was The Cowgirl. She’d swaggered through the streets of Moscow during the last days of the Cold War like Annie Fucking Oakley packing heat, and though she’d been burned by KGB’s Second Chief Directorate, she hadn’t given the fuckers anything, and whatever operation she’d run-this was still very, very secret-it must have been a son of a bitch, because she’d never gone back in the field but had scampered up the CIA career ladder like a hungry squirrel up an oak tree. The President thought she was smart, and if you wanted a friend in this business, the President of the United States was right up there, because he knew the spook business. Then came the stories about what President Ryan had once done. Bringing out the chairman of the fucking KGB? MP must have been part of that, the boys and girls of the DO all thought. All they knew even within the confines of CIA- except, of course, for those who needed to know (both of them, the saying went)-was what had been published in the press, and while the media generally knew jack shit about black operations, a CNN TV crew had put a camera in