“You mean Cox?” The Deputy Director was initially reluctant to play Marston’s game. “You know I can’t talk about that, Bill.”
As far as Marston was concerned, this was just standard-issue bluff. One more glass of Highland Park, a decent bottle of Californian Merlot over lunch and Jenson would be more inclined to talk.
“What if I told you I’d heard some things on the grapevine?”
“What kind of things?”
“That one of our most prestigious satellite communications companies provided some much-needed technical assistance on rocket propulsion to the Chinese without obtaining the correct licences from the federal government. That this prestigious satellite communications company is now facing a multi-million dollar fine for consorting with the enemy.”
It was the one part of the Cox Report that Marston had enjoyed. While thousands of Chinese spies had been busy ripping off American nuclear secrets for the best part of two decades, Canyon Enterprises, one of Macklinson’s fiercest rivals in the field of satellite communications, had colluded with the PRC on sensitive technologies. Play their cards right and Macklinson stood to benefit from Canyon’s fall from grace, scooping up defence, electronics and system integration businesses worth billions of dollars.
“That story is already in the public domain, right?” Jenson said. “I can understand why you might be interested.”
A waiter who had worked in the clubhouse for almost seventeen years, and whose name Marston had never successfully committed to memory, approached the two men and ushered them through to the dining room. They ordered seafood cocktails and broiled Porter house steaks and the conversation continued.
“What if I also told you that I’d heard about the extent of Chinese infiltration of our nuclear fraternity?” Jenson was looking through the wine list. “What if I knew that thanks to American tax dollars and American scientific breakthroughs and American hard work, Beijing now has dozens of fully functioning, effectively US-made ICBMs pointed at New York, Washington and Los Angeles?”
“Well then I’d say that nothing has changed. I’d say that Bill Marston still has great sources of information.”
“I’m pissed, Dick.” Marston hissed the words into a flower arrangement in the centre of the table. He had a history of heart trouble and had to watch himself when he became angry. “These guys have infiltrated our business environments, our scientific communities, our colleges. They’re selling American military technology to rogue states, to regimes hostile to the United States. China has sold guidance components and telemetry equipment to the Iranians, for Christ’s sakes. They’re proliferating to the Syrians, North Korea, fuckin’ Gaddafi. Are you guys on top of this? What’s happening at Langley these days? Ever since Clinton came in, everything’s gotten so goddam soft.”
“We’re on top of it,” Jenson assured him, though this was far from what he believed. He wanted to hit the gooks just as much as Marston did, but his hands were tied. He resorted to a flimsy soundbite. “Sure, we’ve been the victims of a highly successful campaign of industrial and political espionage, but let me assure you that the United States still maintains an overwhelming military and commercial advantage over the People’s Republic-”
“I don’t give a shit about that. I know we can still kick their ass in a straight fight. I just don’t like the way they do business. I don’t like the way highly qualified Macklinson executives come to me every day complaining about the impossibility of making a decent buck in Beijing. My people in China have to get to know their clients’ families, remember birthdays, take their wives to health clubs. What are we? A fucking charity? Off the record, Dick, Macklinson is paying for six Chinese kids to go to Stanford. You have any idea what that costs? And just so some board of directors in Wuhan will guarantee the legitimacy of a telecoms contract. And these guys have the nerve to steal our technology at the same time. Who the hell do they think they are? You know, not so long ago American soldiers were fighting in Manchuria trying to stop the entire region speaking Japanese.” Jenson felt the historical argument was somewhat strained. “That’s right. American boys putting their lives on the line for China’s future. And this is how they repay us.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
Marston paused. His glass from the clubhouse bar was a pale yellow meltdown of ice and whisky.
“What I’m suggesting is an idea.” He had lowered his voice. Jenson was obliged to push forward in his chair and felt a muscle twitch in his lower back. “Off the books, if it has to be. A clandestine operation looking into ways of destabilizing Beijing. Just the same way we gave the Poles a little push. Just the same way the Agency funded Walesa and Havel. Now I know you guys already have operations out there, but this would be in conjunction with Macklinson, using our infrastructure and our people on the ground in China. Come up with something and we’ll help you.” Jenson produced a low, enigmatic whistle. “Communism is a dying art, Dick, and communist China has been around too long. You’ve seen what happened in the Soviet bloc. All we’re lookin’ at is giving these guys a helping hand. Call it a push to a delayed domino effect. And when Beijing falls, I want America there picking up the pieces.”
13
When Joe returned home he found Isabella asleep, a white cotton sheet pushed down below her feet, her face turned towards the bedroom wall so that in the darkness he could make out the lovely cello curvature of her back and legs. He drank a small glass of single malt in their cluttered kitchen, showered in a stuttering stream of vaguely sulphurous Hong Kong water and slipped into bed beside her. He wanted to wake her with kisses that laddered down her spine, to encourage her body to turn towards his, to place his hand in the blissful envelope created by her closed thighs, but he could not do so for fear that she would wake up, look at the clock and ask where he had been, ask why it had taken him so long to resolve a simple problem at Heppner’s, and why it was now almost four o’clock in the morning when he had left the restaurant before ten? Best just to set his alarm for six and to slip out before the questions started. Best just to leave her a note.
Despite his exhaustion, Joe found it difficult to sleep. Unable to shut down his mind he lay motionless on his back as the clock on the bedside table thrummed towards five, turning over the details of the long conversation with Wang and plotting the possible trajectory of their imminent second meeting. Shortly before dawn he fell into a deep sleep from which he was woken by dreams of prisons and pliers and Urumqi. At six he gave up on sleep, rolled out of bed, kissed Isabella gently on the shoulder and went into the kitchen. From the fridge he removed a mango, some bananas and a pineapple and prepared a fruit salad for when she woke up. He then laid out a breakfast tray, wrote her a short note, placed a sheet around her body to keep her warm in the cool air of the morning, dressed and slipped outside in search of a cab.
Twenty minutes later he boarded a half-empty Star ferry which chugged across Victoria Harbour like a faithful dog. Junks and cargo ships assumed silhouettes in the gradually improving light. Joe stood at the stern railings like a departing dignitary, looking back at the coat-hanger lights of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, at the fading neon outlines of Central and Causeway Bay, at the great massed lump of the Peak behind them. As the sun grew brighter he picked out workmen buzzing in the bamboo scaffolding of the Convention and Exhibition Centre, working day and night to finish the building before the handover. Inside the ferry, businessmen and cleaning ladies and ageing shopkeepers, most of whom had known the same view every morning of their working lives, snoozed on cramped plastic chairs, undisturbed by the day’s first aeroplanes which roared in low overhead.
On the Kowloon side Joe shuffled out of the terminal through a crush of rush-hour workers and walked east along Salisbury Road. There was still an hour to go before he was expected at the safe house and he gave in to a sudden, imperial urge to eat breakfast at the Peninsula Hotel. A waiter in late middle age guided him through the marble splendour of the ancient lobby and found him a quiet table with a view onto the bustling streets outside. Joe ordered eggs Benedict and orange juice and read the International Herald Tribune from cover to cover while thinking of Isabella eating breakfast alone in their apartment. Towards eight o’clock he paid the bill, which came to almost HK$300, and took a cab to within a block of Yuk Choi Road.
Only when he was at the door, waiting for Lee to respond to his four short bursts on the buzzer, did Joe remember that he had switched off his phone the night before. As he waited on the steps of the building, the
