by Adam Brookes
1/ I must say it again that I will NOT identify myself for you. You say it will help if I tell you my name and my position but I tell you again NO. This is for security. The anti-corruption campaign here is still fierce, and many are under suspicion, though not me.
2/ I will confirm what you say you have surmised. Some foreign operations, including some in North America, fall under my responsibility. There can be room for great cooperation here between our two organisations. Remember that the success of these North American operations make me stronger in my position, and will bring me more authority and even access, which can be helpful to you. Perhaps you can help me by informing me what you know of U.S. counter-intelligence efforts against our networks in America.
3/ I require that you continue to limit distribution and pay attention to my security. Courier work remains very good. This old lady is most impressive.
4/ You have not responded to my request for diamonds. Please give me a response.
Next communication will be in six weeks, according CASTLE protocol.
Thank you, my friends, and until next time.
Z
END REPORT
Her father’s voice was rising, and Pearl could feel the twisting in her stomach, the prickling behind her eyes. He thumped the steering wheel, then prodded her arm.
“It’s easy. For God’s sake, why do you make such a fuss? Go. Do it.”
“What am I doing?”
“You are doing what I tell you. Now go.”
She unbuckled her seat belt, took the laptop bag from where it rested by her feet, opened the door. Her father was checking his watch.
“Eighteen minutes,” he said. “Go.”
She got out of the car. They’d been back in Washington only five days. She was on Wisconsin Ave, in Tenleytown. Her father gave her one more look through the car window, then pulled away. The traffic was light—it was early Sunday morning, bright and cool. She saw starlings on telephone wires, noticed the first flecks of orange in the leaves.
The coffee shop was half a block away. They’d only just opened up, and one of the baristas was cleaning the plate-glass windows with newspaper. She went in, ordered a cappuccino and sat on a tall stool by the window, as her father had told her to.
She opened the laptop and turned it on—again, as her father had told her to. He had kept her up, late into the night going over it again and again, all through the betrayal hours. He let her sleep for a stretch, then woke her up before dawn to make her do it again. He had sat on her bed, jabbing his finger at the screen. He never sat on her bed.
She thought about her childhood, its long, tense silences, its absences. Years passed as she sat in her bedroom, in the nook by the window, reading, looking out on other people’s summers, the fireflies in the trees. She wondered at how her father’s anger had shaped her, grinding through her emotional landscape like a glacier, relentless and inescapable. And now, all it took was his silence, the movement of a hand or an eyebrow for fear to erupt in her.
She remembered a family trip to the beach at Lewes, Delaware, on the Atlantic coast. She must have been eleven or twelve. He’d got into an argument with the hotel clerk, some stupid misunderstanding—the wrong room, the wrong key. He’d become convinced it was because he was an immigrant, because he was Chinese, because his English was awkward. He’d exploded, screaming over the counter, spittle flying, then swept his arm along the counter top, knocking the register and a vase of flowers to the floor. The clerk was black, and her father was yelling epithets, foul words at her. Everyone was appalled. Only when a bystander threatened to call the police did he suddenly calm down. Just like that. His equilibrium restored in a split second. It was astonishing. When she remembered it, a wave of despair came over her, as if his actions were hers, as if she were at fault, her character permanently impaired by being there, witnessing it.
She sipped the coffee and waited.
At exactly twelve minutes past nine, as ordered, she activated a local wireless network and entered the password.
Someone was waiting for her.
At fourteen minutes past, she uploaded twelve files, large ones.
Who were they? They were close. Were they in the coffee shop? Outside? In a car?
She closed the laptop, wiping her eyes. She could see her father’s car, circling. He was looking at her from the driver’s side window. She left the coffee shop, walked down the block and then he was pulling in beside her. She got in.
“Did you do it?” he said.
She nodded. They drove home without speaking, and he had a self-satisfied look the whole way.
Mangan left the basement, in the early-morning sunlight. He walked beside railway tracks, stopped and looked at a lugubrious basilica, wandered into a café and ate pancakes and bacon.
He was running low on cash. At some point he’d have to make a withdrawal. He was logging on now regularly from his own laptop. So he was visible. Patterson hadn’t contacted him in three days. And the last time was simply to repeat the order to do nothing. Was he being cut loose? Was this it?
The whole affair felt as if it were drawing to a close.
He had no idea what he would do. Where would he go? Back to London? What would he do there? Look for some newsroom job or some editing gig, rent a tiny flat and take the bus and hit forty, on his own, without friends, possessions or purpose. Should he go back to Asia, become an expat in Thailand or Indonesia, watching himself become one of those wizened white men perched like old crows in the bars and strip joints.
He bought more cigarettes, went back to the basement, and logged on.
Dear Pearl,
I think we should meet. I am in Washington. Just name a place and a time, and I’ll be there. We can just talk. I think I can help you.
Philip
This is it, he thought. There won’t be anything after this.
Pearl had shut herself in her room when they got back, lying under the duvet for a long while.
“Pearl?”
Her mother tapped feebly at the door. Pearl said nothing.
“Can I come in?”
The door opened. Her mother came into the room. She was still in her dressing gown. She looked like a little, frightened bird.
“Pearl?” She sat on the bed. “Pearl, you must understand.”
“Must I?”
Her mother sighed. “This is who we are.”
“What? What does that mean?”
Her mother looked meaningfully at her.
“And it is who you are, too.”
“Why? Why is it who I am?”
“A lot of people are depending on us, Pearl.”
“Who’s depending on us?”
“Our relatives. My mother, and your aunt. Beetle. Your cousins. Many people.”
She pulled herself up onto her elbows.
“I don’t get it, Ma. Why are our relatives depending on me going out and digging up—”
Her mother put her finger to her lips anxiously.
“We don’t talk like that, Pearl.”
“But—”
“Not ever.”
Pearl lay back down heavily.
“If we do not do our work, they are vulnerable. You have to understand that.”
“Vulnerable?”
Her mother rubbed her eyes and switched to Mandarin.
“When you start, you know, at the beginning, you do it because it’s so exciting. It all feels so important. And the officials of the State Security organs are there and they look at you, and their look has such respect in it. And you know that you have found your place, your life’s work. And there’s the training and … and everything.”
She paused, and Pearl looked at her little frail back, her thin shoulders in the cheap robe.
“But over the years, well, we change, don’t we? Things that once seemed important maybe don’t seem so important any more. So they must keep us focused, keep our minds on the work.”
Pearl was incredulous. Her mother went on.
“So they just hint, you know, ‘Oh, your mother’s not so well. But the hospitals in Taiyuan are very crowded. She’s not sure she can find a bed.’ Or, ‘Your cousin’s little boy, he’s taking the university entrance exams, isn’t he? Let’s hope he does well.’”
“What? And you just accept this?”
Her mother turned to her.
“And you will accept it too.”
“Will I?”
“You already have.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are already doing the work. You are part of it now.”
Pearl felt the thought hit home, a hot metallic flush in her cheeks, her chest. She was part of it now.
“Is it just us? Or are there others?”
“Oh, there are others. A lot of people. Not just us. So you are responsible to them as well. You have to accept it.”
“No. We do not have to accept this, Ma. We can just—”
“Just what?”
“We can go to the authorities, to the police, FBI.”
“What? Are you quite mad?”
“We can, Ma.”
“Pearl you never say that. To even think that is to betray me, and your father, and your family, and your country.”
“My country?”
“You put many, many people in danger.”
“But Ma—”
“Have you any idea what would happen? Do you know what they do to people like us? Have you heard about the Supermax prisons? Where you are in solitary confinement for years? Just a concrete cell, concrete floor, concrete bed. Years. They would separate us. We would never see each other again.” She was becoming animated, her eyes shining, her features twisting in frustration. “You stupid, selfish girl. You never say that. Never.” And she leaned over and tried to slap Pearl, batting at her face. Pearl started to cry as well, suddenly, hot tears dripping onto her hands, and she was yelling at her mother.
“But this is all lies! It’s lies. You have lied to me all my life. All my life!”
“No. We always love you. You’re our daughter, for God’s sake!”
Pearl brought her arms up and held her head, drawing up her knees, sobbing.
“My whole life and it’s one big fucking lie!”
Her mother bent double as if struck in the stomach, her hands shaking.
“Pearl, no! No, no, no. Stop.” She was close to hysterical.
Neither of them spoke for a moment, and Pearl just heard her own shuddering breaths. She was lying on her side, curled up.
“You did this,” she said. “You gave me to them.”
And her mother reached out and swatted at Pearl again.
“No!” And then she put both her hands to her mouth, her face contorted. “I’m going to tell your father,” she said, and ran from the room.
Silence.
Pearl lay beneath the duvet, rigid. Minutes passed.
Then his footsteps on the stairs. She felt sick.
He had stopped outside her door. Then his soft knock.
She found herself gazing at the tiny flowers on the cover of the duvet—orange and green print on white cotton, the little leaves curling around the petals—and her nails, bitten and ragged, the whorls and friction ridges of her fingerprints.
He was in his jeans, a pair of slippers and the same green polo shirt he’d worn when he came back staggering and reeking from that club. He walked to the bed, standing over her.
“What did you say to Ma?”
“Nothing.”
He folded his arms.
“What did you say to her?”
“Why can’t you talk to me?”
“I am talking to you.”
“Everything you say is a threat.”
“I’m not making any threats.”
“Ma made threats. And now she’s sent you and you’ll make threats.”
“Pearl, you have to understand some things.”
Pearl made herself look at him.
“You didn’t even want me, as a child. Not me. You just wanted me for this.”
He responded quite matter-of-factly.
“No. That’s wrong. We wanted you very much, even though you were a girl. No matter you are our only daughter. We had no intention of involving you, but when it became clear that you were … gifted, it was inevitable. It wasn’t even our idea.”
“Whose idea was it? Those people we met. Was it theirs? They decided?”
“Those people think a lot of you. They were impressed.”
“Why don’t I have a choice?”
He ran his hand through his hair. A warning sign.
“Because we don’t have choices. Now tell me what you said to Ma.”
“I said, we could go to the police.” She mumbled it.
He nodded.
“I see. And why? Why would we do that?”
“To … get free of it.”
She could hear his breathing.
“To get free.” He leaned over her, his hands on his knees. “Child, if you go to the police, you destroy everything. Everything.”
His face was close to hers. She stared at the little petals.
“I won’t allow that,” he said.
She shrank at his words, the finality. He leaned close and placed a thick hand on her face, cupping her cheek—it hinted at love, but promised violence.
After he left, she lay still for a long time, cried a little. She was adrift. All links—to her family, to her previous self—were compromised, stretched to breaking point.
She sat up, and the thought rose unbidden and terrible in her, and took a moment to settle and form.
What would happen if she severed those links? What would be out there?
She reached for her phone on the nightstand and opened her email.
Philip,
Since nothing makes any sense any more, and you will just be one more thing that is new and unfamiliar and dangerous, I will meet you. You better have something to tell me.
Pearl
36
Mangan lay awake at four in the morning, dry-mouthed, nauseated. He had left the basement flat the previous night, gone to a pub that served “craft” beer and steaks and had drunk far too much thick hoppy beer followed by red wine, a bottle, nearly. He’d ended up leaning against the bar, talking rubbish to a girl, no, a woman, an almond-eyed grad student with long black hair and beautiful teeth. He’d reeled back to the flat after one and gone to sleep fully clothed, waking with a scabrous mouth and loneliness flooding him. He stood up in the darkness, went to the sink, groped for a glass and drank tap water.
He thought of the woman in the pub, her light, easy laughter. She’d told him about her family. They came from El Salvador, she’d said. So, an immigrant story, an American story, the mother and father working three jobs, the little girl the first in her family to go to college, her abuela weeping at graduation. She’d told him all these things in such a gentle, engaging way, marvelling at all the things that had happened to this kid from a shack in San Miguel.
And then, when he’d talked to her, he had lied, all the time. Even the alcohol couldn’t shut down the little lie machine in his head. After a while, she’d looked at him quizzically, as if she could tell something was amiss. Or maybe she just saw how drunk he was. He thought about her skin, the glossy hair draped on her shoulders, disgusted with himself. The loneliness was like a tide in him, surges of need lapping in his chest. He picked up his laptop from the floor, opened it, saw the email.
I will meet you. You better have something to tell me.
He closed the laptop, lay down, curled his knees up and sought sleep.
And then, at nine, a banging at the door. He struggled up and leaned against the wall in his underwear, hair awry.
“Who is it?” he said.
“Who do you bloody well think it is?” said Patterson.
He opened the door. She stood erect, feet slightly parted, hands clasped in front of her, in jeans, trainers, a waterproof. She might as well have been in u
niform. She looked primed and hard and fit, but her eyes gave away something: a reservation? Doubt?
“Expecting someone else?” she said.
He just shook his head and walked back to the bed. She came in and wrinkled her nose as if she smelled putrefaction.
“Jesus Christ, Philip.”
“Yeah, all right.” He was pulling a pair of jeans over his long, pale thighs.
“You look like death warmed up.”
“What do you want, Trish?”
“I want you to get up. You have a meeting.”
“No. I don’t,” he said. “Not with you, anyway.”
“Yes, you do. You really do.” She was serious now. “You need to get yourself ready. And bring your laptop.”
Then she frowned.
“What do you mean, not with me?” she said.
“I mean the girl. She’s been in contact. She wants to meet.”
At which point she walked over to him, grabbed him by the arm and forced him towards the bathroom.
“Get in the fucking shower and sort yourself out. We leave in ten minutes.”
She was half shouting now, and he was startled, staggering through the bathroom door. She slammed it behind him. His feet tingled on the cold, tiled floor.
“Where are we going?”
Her voice came back through the door.
“Shower. Get dressed. Now!”
She drove fast and expertly, easing them up 16th and onto the Beltway, then Interstate 270, headed north. He tried to ask again where they were going, but she just shook her head. When they came off the interstate, he implored her to stop, and they pulled over at a Dunkin’ Donuts. She watched the parking lot while he got coffee and a Big N’ Toasted. They did a U-turn, headed south, ducked into smaller suburban streets, parked up in strip malls, waiting, Patterson staring at a secure handheld. The morning was grey and threatened rain. Mangan finished his coffee and closed his eyes. They headed south, over the river, into Virginia.
At Tyson’s Corner, the rain started, coming down hard, and the traffic slowed. Patterson swore and pushed on, until, with no signal and a last-minute flick of the wheel that had Mangan straining against his seat belt, they were off the highway and into an underground car park at speed, circling down into the concrete gloom.