Lipton eyed Kovalenko for a moment while he drove. “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?”
Kovalenko saw that Lipton could see right through him. He said, “I do not. I have my orders. You have yours.”
Lipton smiled. “I get it, Ivan. I see it now. Center has something on you, same as me. You aren’t his man. You are his agent.”
Kovalenko spoke in a tired voice: “We are all cogs in a system. A system we do not fully understand. But we understand our own mission, and that is what I need you to focus on.”
Lipton pulled over to the side of the road. “Tell Center I want more money.”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”
“You’re Russian. He is obviously Russian. Even though you are his errand boy, just like me, he’s more likely to listen to you.”
Kovalenko smiled wearily. “You know how it is. If an intelligence organization pays its agent a lot of money, then the agent won’t need money anymore, and he will be less incentivized to help.”
Lipton shook his head. “You and I both know what my incentive is to work for Center. It’s not money. It’s blackmail. But I am damn well worth more money.”
Kovalenko knew this was not true. He had read the man’s file. Yes, blackmail had been the short-term impetus to get him to begin spying. He had images on his computer that Center had found that could get him thrown in prison.
But he now was very much in it for the money.
The quantity and quality of his whores had gone through the roof in the year that he had been working for the mysterious employer who gave him simple instructions every week or two.
His wife and kids had not seen a dime of the money he’d made; he’d opened a private account, and almost every penny of it had gone to Carmen and Barbie and Britney and the other girls who worked the hotels in Crystal City and Rosslyn.
Kovalenko had no respect for the man, but he did not need to respect an agent to run him.
He opened the door and got out. “Have your agent arrive at that location at nine a.m. I will talk to Center about your compensation in the meantime.”
The Chinese government’s State Security Law compels China’s citizens to comply and cooperate with all government security employees, mandating that hotels and other businesses give unrestricted access to all operations.
This meant, in short, that most business-class hotels in China were bugged with audiovisual equipment that was piped to Ministry of State Security employees who monitored it for intelligence value.
There were many commercial secrets the Chinese could learn just by flipping a switch and posting a translator with a notepad at a radio receiver.
Chavez, Caruso, and Driscoll knew their Beijing hotel would be bugged, and they agreed on their game plan while still in the States. During their time in their suites they would stay in character, their cover-for-status would remain in place.
As soon as they checked in after their interminably long commercial flight from the U.S., Ding turned the shower on its hottest setting and then stepped out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He flipped on the TV and then began undressing, just a tired businessman, worn-out from a brutal flight, looking to grab a quick shower before crawling into bed. He walked around while he took off his shirt, stood in front of the TV, doing his best to act naturally, although in truth he was scanning carefully for cameras around the room. He checked the television set itself, and then the wall opposite his bed. He laid his shirt and undershirt on the desk next to his carry-on bag, and while doing this he peered carefully at the lampshade.
Ding was familiar with at least two dozen of the most common miniature cameras and audio receivers; he knew what to look for, but so far he had found nothing.
He noticed the overhead lights were recessed in the ceiling. To him this looked like a great place to secrete a camera. He stood directly under the lights, but he did not climb onto a bed or a chair to check for them.
They were here, he was sure enough. If he went out of his way to look for them, the MSS goons watching him would notice, and this would ensure even more attention on his room.
When he was undressed he stepped back into the bathroom. By now it was completely fogged, and it took a minute for the fog to clear enough for him to get a good look around. The first place he checked was the large bathroom mirror, and he found what he was looking for immediately: a foot-square portion where the glass had not fogged up.
That, Ding knew, was because there was a recess on the other side of the glass where a camera was positioned. There was probably a Wi-Fi radio there, too, which sent the camera’s signal and the signal for the audio equipment hidden somewhere in the suite back to wherever it was the MSS guys were.
Ding smiled inwardly. Standing there naked, he wanted to wave at the camera. He suspected ninety-nine percent of the businessmen and — women who stayed in this hotel and dozens more like it in Beijing had absolutely no idea they were on candid camera every time they took a shower.
In two other suites on the same floor, Dominic Caruso and Sam Driscoll were doing their own hidden countersurveillance of their rooms. All three Americans came to the same easy conclusion: they would all have to be careful to do nothing, to say nothing, and to act in no way different from the average hotel guest, lest they compromise their operation.
All three men had been in the field in hostile environments many times before. The Chinese were hard-core in their spying tactics, but all three men knew they could play their roles and do nothing to alert the bored men and women monitoring them that they were up to something here in Beijing.
Ding had just settled in to bed to catch a few hours’ sleep when his satellite phone rang. It was encrypted, so he wasn’t worried about anyone listening in electronically, although there were no doubt microphones in the room.
He turned on the TV, walked out to the balcony, and then closed the glass door behind him.
“Uh… Ding?”
“Adam?” Chavez said, his voice barely more than a whisper.
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you called. People are wondering what happened to you.”
“Yeah. Just went off-grid for a while.”
“I get it.”
Yao said, “I’ve found where Center is operating from.”
“By yourself?”
“Yep.”
“Where?”
“It’s in Guangzhou, about two hours north of Hong Kong. I don’t have an address, but I’ve narrowed it down. It’s near the TRB, the Technical Recon Bureau. He’s in mainland China, Ding. He was working for the Chicoms the entire time.”
Chavez looked around nervously. It occurred to him that Beijing was a really bad place to take this phone call.
“Yes. We put that together ourselves. You have to find a way to let your employer know.”
“Look, Ding. I’m done sending cables back to Langley. They’ve got a leak, and that leak is getting back to the PRC. I tell Langley and it’s a good bet Center just moves again.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to work without a net.”
Chavez said, “I like your style, Adam, but that’s not going to be good for your career.”
“Getting killed isn’t good for my career, either.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“I could use some help.”
Chavez thought it over. There was no way he could spare either Driscoll or Caruso right now, and no way they could just take off without having the Chinese minders become very suspicious.
