The Chinese Spymaster

by Hock G Tjoa

  “I’ll try again to find someone who can advise us,” said Administrator Hu.

  “But what can we propose and implement?” asked Wang.

  “The Politburo cannot expect us to bring about world peace!” Tang interjected.

  “Do you understand the Politburo so well?”

  Because the Spymaster had a prankish grin as he asked this, his two aides did not worry that they had overlooked something. It was not Wang’s intention, however, to have his aides play guessing games. They had neither the luxury of time nor infinite resources.

  “Let’s ask ourselves how we might achieve two things. Firstly, disrupt or otherwise prevent the arms deals, and secondly, respond to Pashtun independence. We must wait to confront the effect of their example on our minorities.” As his aides protested at this, the Spymaster asked, “Are those not the two things we must try to do? Tell me if you think I am wrong—what am I missing?”

  The Spymaster looked at his two deputies; they nodded thoughtfully, but neither spoke. He continued, “Remember, I do not say that this organization has to do both entirely on its own. I simply ask what we must do to get other members of the CPS motivated.”

  Wang stood up, indicating that the meeting was reaching an end.

  “Please prepare a brief that outlines both issues and specify the action each organization needs to take and what WE should do to influence the outcome of what they might do. Please have this ready by late this afternoon. I will need to bring something to the meeting tomorrow. Naturally, you will find me in here all day if I can help either of you.”

  The Spymaster had observed that Hu and Tang worked efficiently together, breaking up a complex exercise into manageable tasks. Usually, Hu worked on the practical measures, how to locate and prevent or disrupt each potential arms deal, while Tang outlined the strategy, the steps that might prevent or forestall the tribes and the possible actors against this threat of Pashtun irredentism.

  The Spymaster assigned to himself the enigma of an Israeli source of a suitcase bomb for the Pashtuns and the challenge of thwarting an arms dealer in Kazakhstan. The “Pashtun example” that Tang mentioned made him uneasy.

  If the Pashtun tribes, who are so divided by real or imagined slights and blood feuds, could unify—why not one or another, or all, of the restive minorities in China? The Tibetans were an obvious party as were the Uyghurs. Whether by themselves or in combination with some other ethnic or religious minority in China, they would be a serious threat. He did not think that the geopolitics of the world was comparable to a game of dominoes, but he was certain that tribes and nations, like children, closely observed what others did and could “get away with.”

  He had found only a few Party leaders in China sensitive to the questions and demands raised by the ten percent (and growing) of China’s population that were not Han. Political leaders and civil intelligentsia alike were either clueless or willfully ignorant. Guangdong Province by itself, for example, commanded more attention, even though its population was less than the total of all non-Han peoples. But of course, that province was next to Hong Kong, which was very much in the eyes of the world, and very prosperous.

  The Spymaster sighed. His reading suggested that the poor and the neglected in a country or a region of the world would generate dogged and deadly conflict. Their resentment would be dangerous if they had sufficient numbers. Or a nuclear device.

  4: THE TOWN

  “Oh, my brother.”

  “Oh, my sister. Has the mullah tired of you?” She did not reply, but Ali guessed there would be five of them on the journey back to the village.

  Ali had walked for nearly half a day before a passing army Jeep stopped to pick him up. His city clothes, jeans prominent under the tunic that all mountain folk wore, spared him such harassment as suffered by those living in these Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. The soldiers dropped him off after they entered the city, and he continued on foot to a square not far from the army base. The roads were dusty and the city muggy. Ali wiped the sweat off his face.

  He found his sister and her three children at the house of the Shopkeeper’s friend. They looked well, but the Spy could see the unhappiness on his sister’s face. She had been merry as a child, full of good-natured mischief.

  She poured water from a jug, so he could wash his hands and feet before entering the shop and house where he himself had lived for two years. The two-storied mud-brick that stood in a line with four others belonged to the father of a Captain Humayun of the ISI. The old man welcomed his former apprentice warmly. He had been a classmate of Shopkeeper Gholam. Although a Waziri himself, he married a woman from the plains and chose to live among her people. Secretly, he had interceded with his son on behalf of Shopkeeper Gholam in the aftermath of the capture and imprisonment of Abdur-rahman, the Soldier’s father, and Captain Humayun had seen the possibilities in the situation.

  The Captain was in charge of the local office of the ISI and, as usual, did not return to his house until late in the evening. A strong, trim man in his early thirties, he wore a full mustache but no beard, unlike the mountain men. He slipped among the shadows, so casual observers would not notice which house he entered. The four row houses appeared identical. Behind them stretched courtyards with connected buildings similarly constructed of concrete. Only stray light from a few windows served to show the Captain where to avoid cracks or holes.

  He walked in the dark out of a habit born of his training in law enforcement. Like his fellow intelligence officers, he had ambition and intended, as did they, to acquire wealth. But he personally did not feel the need to make regular “progress reports” to the town by ostentatious additions to his family compound.

  Like the Army, the Intelligence Service accorded various opportunities to enrich oneself. Among other things, information had value, and there were buyers. A careful man could do well. The Captain had seen how the generals lived and sometimes wondered about their wealth. Many of them, of course, had come from wealthy, land-owning families or had married into such families, but everyone had added to their wealth during their careers. Captain Humayun did not yet know where his ambitions would lead, but for the present, he made the most of his opportunities.

  A few years ago, the local Apothecary had mentioned an opportunity and prevailed on him to travel to Peshawar to meet with someone with whom he sealed an arrangement: regular payments in exchange for information that did not compromise Pakistan’s own interest whenever he came upon it, and perhaps an occasional assignment. It had been Spymaster Wang himself, traveling under his favorite cover, that of a school teacher who made pilgrimages to Buddhist sacred places. He found many such places in Peshawar, more than that city’s renown as the eye of the conflict with the radical Muslims would suggest. Captain Humayun understood that he would thus work for the Chinese, though he did not understand what they could find of interest in his information. But that did not concern him. They would pay him, and they would be discreet.

  The Captain and his trained agent talked into the night about the Soldier Najmudin and his revelations. The Pashtun dreams were of no great interest to him; they were old dreams. His eyes narrowed, however, when Ali told him about the Talisman. This information, if true, had value. He paid very careful attention to Ali.

  “Are you sure the Soldier does not suspect you for a spy?”

  “He cannot imagine that this information would be of value to anyone.”

  “Not even the information about the Talisman?”

  After hesitating to take a deep breath, Ali replied, “I would say that the Soldier himself is agnostic about this information. He told us that he’d heard that the Talisman might already be in the hands of the Pashtun, but he did not seem to believe it himself.”

  “Could he have made it all up?” the Captain demanded suspiciously.

  “That requires an active and creative imagination. I do not think the Soldier would invent such talk.”

  “And you? Are you capable of suc
h invention?”

  “You flatter me, Captain. I am only the conduit you yourself trained.” In the lamplight, the Captain and the Spy regarded each other warily.

  The Captain sighed and asked, “Is all well at the village?”

  The spy’s face darkened and his brow puckered. He took a deep breath and said, “Sometimes an old mullah visits and brings dishonor.”

  “Do you believe the world would be better without him and the other spiritual leaders?”

  The Spy struggled with his angry thoughts, and then replied, “Many religious teachers bring comfort, even enlightenment. This one brings only shame and pain. He has taken young girls from villages as his wives. He has divorced several over the years and uses his religious authority to obtain new brides.” The Captain and the Spy searched each other’s faces for a while.

  “What is the mullah’s name and where does he live?”

  “His name is Mullah Hamid, and he lives two villages to the west of ours,” Ali said as the Captain’s face remained impassive.

  The Captain then said, as he got up to leave, “We live in an imperfect world.”

  The next day, Captain Humayun slipped out early to visit a shop somewhat out of the usual route he took to his office. It sold herbal medicines, and he had hoped to see the Apothecary’s daughter with her bright eyes and dimpled cheeks.

  Months ago, his parents had talked to him about finding a bride.

  “I have cousins who have lists of girls ready for marriage,” his mother had said. That was when he confessed to his parents his interest in a young woman at the apothecary’s.

  “That would be a big mistake, my son,” his father had advised. “It is bad enough that you have me, a Pashtun, for a father, and will, therefore, always be suspect among your superior officers. Have you not noticed how, among your generals, there are only your mother’s people—Punjabis. Not only are they Punjabis, but nearly all of them are from Jhelum.” That city was on the banks of a river of the same name. The river was one of five main tributaries of the mighty Indus. “You will compound the error by taking this Apothecary’s daughter as your wife.”

  “She comes from a good family, and I know them well,” interjected his mother. “They are respectable and have lived for two generations in this city. But their origins are across the mountains, and they are most likely to be of mixed Kazakh, and perhaps Mongol, descent.” The discussion concluded with the Captain agreeing to consider taking someone his mother’s cousins or second cousins might recommend as a bride. She would be Punjabi, and with luck, she might even be from Jhelum.

  Captain Humayun had made his own inquiries about the Apothecary and his family but did not discover anything beyond what his mother and everyone in the city already knew, except that among the Apothecary’s ancestors were probably Muslims, originally from China. There had been an uprising early in the nineteenth century, and many fled the cruel reprisals of the Qing Empire. The Apothecary and his family had blended into the population of the Pakistani town since it was far enough to the north that its gene pool contained traces of various central Asian races, Mongol, Turkic, and Tajik.

  The Captain could not stop thinking about the Apothecary’s daughter, however, and looked forward to his rare visits to the shop. But on this day, her father appeared.

  Nearly ten years previously, Spymaster Wang had initiated a search for recruits among peoples with a Central Asian background. In the Western provinces of China, there lived Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Mongols as well as Tibetans. A few of them, not enough, were in the Chinese police or military. The Spymaster also searched in the borderlands of the countries that surround China. Eventually, his scouts arrived at this town and recruited the Apothecary. He became a “passive source” for Chinese intelligence. He actually felt pride in this position and had suggested recruiting the Captain.

  Spymaster Wang personally traveled to the city of Peshawar nearby with another operative. They had broken bread with Captain Humayun and recruited him. They assured him that they would never require him to betray his country and asked only that he bring information to them, copies or summaries of whatever he might send up his chain of command. Perhaps in the future, they might ask of him special favors, specific actions, to confirm or verify “rumors.”

  “I have a message for a brother in Kashgar,” the Captain said, triggering a code. The Apothecary handed him a small notepad and a pencil. The Captain wrote carefully and clearly to communicate the news about the Pashtuns and their instrument of unification, “Northern cousins plan a reunion. A talisman of gold and fire shall lead them.”

  He handed this to the Apothecary who pushed an envelope toward him saying, “This is in addition to your monthly delivery.”

  Later, when the Captain had the opportunity to check it, he found ten hundred-dollar bills, twice the amount he received each month in a parcel of herbs and tea. He wondered what the information was really worth.

  At his office, the Captain telephoned Major Akbar, his superior officer.

  “We have news, sir. Shall I come to the usual place?”

  After a pause, the Major said, “No, there will be a Jeep with three soldiers by the mutton seller in the market in thirty minutes. They will bring you here, and we can talk.” It appeared the Major had an urgent matter to attend to on the Army base, so they met and talked over a fine lunch in the Officers’ Mess.

  “Good work, Captain,” said Major Akbar after the debriefing.

  “Thank you, sir.” He paused briefly then said, “I am meeting our American liaison the day after tomorrow. Should I tell him anything?”

  The Major raised an eyebrow. “Taking the initiative, are we, old chap?” Although they often spoke in Urdu, both men understood and occasionally communicated in English.

  The Captain did not mind speaking English, but he absolutely hated the Major’s manner of speaking when he imitated British public school slang. Captain Humayun considered it nonsensical and associated it with colonial rule. He hoped fervently, however, that his feelings did not show.

  The Major continued, “No, I don’t think we shall tell them yet. They seem too cocksure of themselves these days. I might tell the Chinese, though. After all, they are our allies too. They don’t patronize us like the Americans do.” The Captain was stunned; did the Major know of his arrangement at the Apothecary? He managed, however, to maintain control of his reaction. After all, the Major liked to make jokes like this.

  “Very well, sir. I don’t expect anybody to come and question me, but if they do—”

  “Feel free to tell them what I just said.”

  “Really, sir? Very well, Major.” He returned to his office by the same Jeep.

  In the meantime, the Apothecary and his daughter had discussed the message. They consulted a codebook which contained variations of the Morse code. Taking note of the name of the variation, they selected, and checking frequently while coding the message, the young woman tapped the coded message to be added to a recording of a local song, deliberately choosing one broadcast locally with all accompanying static.

  She then uploaded the song to a website, taking care to include, in the metadata accompanying it, a reference to the name of the code in the book. Thus, they sent the message in the “noise” that accompanied a poorly recorded song uploaded to a public website, hiding in plain sight. Decoding the message simply required a copy of the same codebook. Monitoring of the website would show how much interest it had attracted and from whom, that is, whether security had been breached. Spies value such knowledge.

  Captain Humayun spoke to an aide about his meeting with the Major, taping the conversation. He was not certain about the true loyalties of any of his aides but felt that he should at least have a record of his meetings with the Major. The exchange with the aide served to mark the time and date. After the aide had expressed his amazement at the Major’s eccentric remarks, the Captain said, “Oh, by the way, see what you can find out about a Mullah Hamid from one of the Western vi
llages.”

  “Should I look for anything in particular, Captain?”

  “No, there is only a whiff of a rumor. But we should find out what we can about him. Confirm his movements for the past two months—see if he visited this town. Then, find out his plans for the next two months, if you can.”

  Meanwhile, Major Akbar was being driven from the Army base, having rescued one of his nephews from certain court-martial for assaulting a corporal who had offended him by not bringing his shoes to the desired glossy state. He detested interfering with military justice; he hated it even more when it was at the behest of his oldest sister. But lunch had been most satisfactory, and he had particularly enjoyed toying with Captain Humayun. He had not succeeded yet in finding anything he could hold over the Captain, but he was not in a hurry. Sooner or later, career officers blundered, and the Major had built a useful dossier of such blunders.

  Meanwhile, he prepared his report on the Captain’s intelligence gathering for his own superior officer, adding his opinion that he preferred to pass this intelligence on to the Chinese rather than to the Americans. General Amir Khan and he would both enjoy the joke. What might the Chinese make of such a revelation, innocents that they were and unsophisticated in the delicate art of spying of which the Pakistanis, under the tutelage of the Americans and the British before them, were true masters. Besides, the Chinese were not warriors like the Pakistanis. They were petty shopkeepers. Major Akbar also knew that the General had no love for the Americans. Besides, this cynical statement was better coming from the Major himself than, say, from the Captain. A stray thought distracted the Major when he realized that his dossier did not include any items regarding the General.

  5: ALMATY

  “The villagers still talk about this even though it was fifteen years ago that the ‘Bear’ was attacked and killed. Only his second son, Alexandr survived. The son is known as the ‘Fox’ and is one of the dealers proposing to deliver a portable nuclear device to the Pashtuns. But perhaps, we should start with what happened fifteen years ago; it is a folk legend.” Ruslan, the Kazakh visitor to the Chinese intelligence agency, waved his hands and raised his eyebrows at Administrator Hu who nodded.