by Adam Brookes
It was four in the morning when he was woken, irritated, by a soft, insistent pinging from his computer. He sat on the edge of his bed, chilled. The ping again, crisp and synthetic in the silence. He walked into the front room. The message icon was blinking.
TREEFROG: Dood!!!!!!!!
TREEFROG: You there bro
TREEFROG: WAKE UP BRO
TREEFROG: WAKE UP MANGMAN TALK TO DA FROG
Mangan rubbed his eyes and sat down. The kid was at a college somewhere on America’s east coast. Was it a he? It sounded like a he.
Mangan had been introduced to Treefrog by a human rights activist. Treefrog, apparently, was a hacker of some repute. He had made it his personal business to map China in cyberspace. With a juvenile glee and, as far as Mangan could tell, a vicious precision, Treefrog felt out the digital borders of the Chinese state, and then penetrated them. For the hell of it, he said. For the LOLZ. But beneath the excruciating online patois, Mangan sensed seriousness. Treefrog had charted China’s online attacks on the Followers for months. Denial of service attacks on Follower websites, poisoned emails, network incursions, Treefrog searched out their origins, published the addresses of the perpetrators, and maintained scrupulous records of what he had found. Mangan had quoted him in stories. The notorious hacker, who is known in the cyber-underworld as Treefrog…
ME: Here now.
TREEFROG: where you bin
ME: Asleep. It’s 4am.
TREEFROG: THE FROG NEVER SLEEEPS. HIS ORANGE EYES SEE EEEEEVRYTHIGN
ME: Good for the frog. What do you want?
TREEFROG: Man you are AWWWWWWESOME. Your TV piece bro Police pigs beatin on old follower dudes in that place Sreious bro you nailed it
ME: Thanks.
TREEFROG: got sumpin for ya meet me at the place
Mangan clicked away to a secure chat room that Treefrog favored and logged in.
TREEFROG: WO DERE. we got ourselves biiiiig ddos stinkin up Followers main site last few hours so wot’s new, know wim sayin but there’ other shit dalai lama offices got big attack too. They network down, you should talk to em.
ME: Any sign who’s doing the Dalai Lama attack?
TREEFROG: IP in west china, chengdu city. Guess on tech surv units military but whoknows? Others too other places FROG IS WORKIN THE ISSUE
ME: Good frog. tks
TREEFROG: nuttin of it dood. Also unclE sam is sniffin it out.
Mangan had been struck by Treefrog’s awareness of the U.S. government’s cyber operations. He’d wondered if the hacker had some sort of link to the U.S. security establishment.
ME: the feds? What are they chasing?
TREEFROG: stuff comin cross US servers that points to dalai attack. Bots maybe. Counter intel busy busy Tell your US doods to talk to em at DHS FBI. Could try corporate security too see wat they knowin
ME: how do you know the feds are on it?
TREEFROG: froggy see froggy know
ME: OK OK. Let me know more, yes?
TREEFROG: you heard it from froggy
ME: I’ll use your name.
TREEFROG: FROG OUT
The next morning he had woken late. Ting was already in the bureau, cross-legged on the couch with a pot of yoghurt, reading the People’s Daily.
“Where did you go?” she said.
“Oh. You know.”
He turned on his computer. An email to the desk, first, on Treefrog’s tip, then a call to the Dalai Lama’s offices in India. But cyber-attacks, once a startling story, were becoming routine.
“The French one was cute,” said Ting.
“She was young. And earnest.”
She feigned reading the paper. “Philip Mangan, you are the loneliest man alive.”
They all turned at once. An ample, middle-aged man, his face covered in soap, wearing only underpants and running shoes, was emerging slowly from behind a curtain of orange and blue beads. In his extended hand he proffered a wad of banknotes.
“You can take this.”
The man in sunglasses stared at him. Then looked back to the barrel-shaped woman.
“Who the fuck is he?”
The barrel-shaped woman opened her mouth and closed it again, and shook her head.
Peanut advanced tentatively towards Sunglasses.
“Go on, there’s hundreds there. Take it.”
He inched forward. Chef, unmoving, the meat cleaver pressing on his throat, tried to watch what was happening from the corner of his eye.
Sunglasses reached out and snatched the wad.
On a small metal trolley to Peanut’s right lay a hairdryer of the large, metal, professional kind. As Sunglasses looked down to inspect the notes, Peanut reached for the hairdryer. Sunglasses’ head snapped up and he took half a step back. The kid with the meat cleaver shouted something incoherent. Peanut felt the weight of the hairdryer in his hand and in one flowing movement swept forward and brought it down on Sunglasses’ temple. It was a glancing blow, but enough to stun. The sunglasses clattered to the floor and their owner grunted and raised both hands in front of his face. Peanut brought the hairdryer down again, deliberately catching the ends of the fingers, which brought a screech of pain. Then again, to the head, a swinging, arching blow just above the forehead that put the man on his knees. Two, three more, fast, this time around the face. The nose went with a sound like a ripe fruit shattering and the metallic surface of the hairdryer took on a bloody sheen. Peanut carried on working, breathing hard. The scalp had split and blood was pouring freely down the man’s face. The meat cleaver kid was yelling about getting the others. Then he was gone, scampering out of the front of the salon.
Sunglasses was on the floor, still conscious, but barely. Blood was coming from his mouth. He held an arm half-raised.
Peanut stood up, nearly losing his footing on the bloody floor, grabbed a fistful of Sunglasses’ hair and dragged him to the door and out on to the newly clean steps. Meat cleaver kid and two others were running up the street towards the Blue Diamond, but stopped when they saw Peanut holding their comrade, and then not holding him any more, so he fell limply down the steps and lay on the road.
Peanut faced them. “Who’s in charge?”
They pointed to Sunglasses, who lay unmoving.
“Tell him you don’t touch this business any more. Others, do what you must, but not this one. Tell him, if he comes again I will break his back.”
They nodded dumbly. The meat cleaver kid tried to get Sunglasses to his feet. The man lolled and retched.
Peanut swept up broken glass and mopped up the blood. He had put on his stained green trousers, but was still shirtless. The inhabitants of the Blue Diamond sat and studied his smooth bulk. Eventually the barrel-shaped woman—they called her Dandan Mama—cleared her throat.
“I’m not sure if we should be grateful or fearful, frankly.”
Peanut leaned against the door jamb and lit a cigarette. Shaky again, but he didn’t let them see it.
“How long had you been paying them off?”
“A couple of months.” She paused. “Are we going to have to pay you off now?”
Peanut shook his head and exhaled. “No payment. I could stay around if you want, though.”
Silence.
“Give me somewhere to sleep and I’ll work for food and tips. Look after the place for a few weeks. Make sure they don’t come back again.”
They emptied a storeroom at the back of the building and laid a mattress on the floor. Out of fear? Or am I useful? he wondered. He tipped the contents of the carrier bag into a small basket. Beautiful Peony brought him a flask of hot water, and a mug, and a packet of green tea.
“My name’s Yin,” she said.
5
Beijing
So began his next incarnation, as assistant to the Blue Diamond Beauty Salon. In his mind it was cover and an operational base. He went into the street little, and spoke to no one beyond the salon and the restaurant.
The rhythm of his days took shape quickly. In the m
ornings he cleaned, and changed the stained sheets in the dim little back rooms. Dandan Mama found her sinks had a new shine and peeling paintwork had been smoothed and retouched.
He took to making the girls an early lunch, always the same, a big bowl of rice topped with vegetables in a spicy cumin broth, which they liked, and teased him about. So exotic! Where did you learn to cook with cumin? Where?
The afternoons were his own, before trade began picking up as the dark came down, and the migrant workers stumbled into the salon with beer and sorghum liquor on their breath. At night he sat on a stool next to the beaded curtain and smoked, and the girls felt safer, and the clients, their hands gritty from the building sites, were better behaved.
A week after his return to the capital Peanut took a bus that lumbered into the city. He got off at Jianguomenwai, close to the diplomatic compound, and waited near its north gate.
He struck up conversations with some of the women coming in and out, many of whom cooked and cleaned for diplomatic families. He was able, without too much trouble, to ascertain that the famous British newspaper retained its office, yes, in this very compound, indeed at the same address it always had. And for twenty yuan and some kind words, Peanut persuaded a simple-minded girl from Anhui, a nanny for a Pakistani diplomat’s family, to describe the current occupant of the address. He was, she said, a tall red-headed Englishman, a journalist who was neighbor but one to the family for whom she worked, and who was polite to her, in good Mandarin, in the elevator. Peanut kept his expression level.
“Does he have a name?”
“Mang An. Something like that. I can never say their names.”
He called the old number, gave some rubbish about a delivery, Mr. Mang An to sign. The nanny waited with him not far from the gate, just far enough that the wujing and the cameras would not notice. The street was flanked by a clothing warehouse, the pavement crowded with traders barking in Chinese and Russian. And after five or six minutes she pointed out the Englishman who walked out past the guard, in a tan raincoat, his breath just visible in the chill air, and stood and looked about him.
Peanut regarded the tall figure, its slight stoop, the hands dug deep in the pockets, the red hair so strong on the eye. A restlessness to him, an angularity to the shoulders and elbows that looked awkward and strong at once. He considered for a moment waiting, but the opportunity was before him.
Approaching the figure from the side, he started in his awful English.
“Mr. Mang An. Journalist.”
The Englishman turned.
“Mr. Mang An. You speak Chinese?”
The tall Englishman nodded.
Peanut stood back, hands down, palms out. The Englishman was looking at him with a questioning expression, not unfriendly, but with a level intelligence that Peanut could feel. Their strange, green eyes, he thought. He spoke in Mandarin.
“Mr. Mang An. You represent the British newspaper?”
“Yes, I do.”
Peanut kept his expression neutral. “I am an old friend of your newspaper.”
“Are you? We have not met, I think.”
“We have not met. But I will have information for you.”
“I see. Can you tell me what it is about?”
“Please tell your friends at the British Embassy.” He sensed the Englishman pull back.
“I do not work with the embassy.” A harder tone, but Peanut pushed on.
“This is very important, Mr. Mang An, whether you work with them or not. Please tell them information is coming. And also, tell them one more thing.” And then in English, “Tell them, the night heron is hunting.”
“I do not work with the embassy, and I do not want to hear any more of what you have to say. I am going to leave now.” The Englishman turned away.
Peanut called after him in English. “The bird, Mr. Mang An. The heron. Please tell them that.”
But the tall red-headed Englishman was striding quickly away, towards the gate.
Peanut watched him go, shivered, wondered what he had set in train.
6
Beijing
He woke long before dawn. The door to the storeroom was open, and there was Yin, silhouetted in the gloom. She shut the door and tiptoed across the concrete floor. She wore a long T-shirt, her legs bare. She bent and slipped under the quilt next to him on the threadbare little mattress. Peanut lay still, could feel her warmth. Soon her breathing was turning regular and shallow, sleep drawing her down. He nudged her.
“Will you do something for me?”
She smelled of some cream, something womanly.
“I’ve been doing it all night. Let me rest.”
“Not that.” He felt himself reddening, even in the darkness. “Not that, you stupid girl.” He turned away from her, their backs touching now.
“What, then?”
“Take me shopping.”
They took a bus to a department store in Fangzhuang, Peanut clutching a week’s tips and something extra from Dandan Mama. Yin wore a black anorak with a fur hood. It was too big for her and she peered from its recesses, pale, but with a spark of pleasure that Peanut hadn’t seen before. Blank little Yin, suddenly filled with purpose. He was watchful and ducked quickly into the store.
She steered him to the men’s clothing and made him strip in a white changing stall. He wanted a blue jacket with gold buttons. Yin had to search to find one that coped with his girth. And a striped shirt and tan slacks. He settled on a pair of cheap shoes made of some indeterminate material, which shone the color of chestnuts, and a plain black overcoat. He stood, labels dangling, under the neon, while Yin regarded him, hips cocked, arms folded.
“What’s this for, anyway?”
For cover.
“I may have to meet someone and I want to look right,” said Peanut.
“Who may you have to meet?”
“Never mind.”
She smirked. “But I do mind. When are you meeting her? Perhaps I’ll follow you.”
Now he looked at her and spoke slowly. “No. You won’t.”
He tried hard, but the afternoon was broken after that. They rode the bus back to the Blue Diamond in silence.
That evening, as Yin and the other girls were getting down to work, he sat in the little storeroom under the dim light bulb, half an ear on the proceedings. He took from its plastic bag the faded, fragile newspaper clipping and looked intently at it for a long time.
A photograph in poor black and white print on yellowing paper.
A Party leader, wearing a suit with a scientist’s white coat over the top. The leader is walking purposefully through what seems to be an aircraft hangar, his expression one of pride and resolution. Behind him a coterie of scientists, also in white coats, captured in mid-stride, keeping up, excited, gratified by this visit from the leadership. The caption: Communist Party General Secretary and State President Jiang Zemin visits the Nanyuan Launch Vehicle Facility. That’s all. Among the scientists scurrying in the General Secretary’s wake, one has his eyes down and carries a clipboard. Even through the smeary print, Peanut could make out the head of silver hair, long, touching the collar, and the fine bones in the face, a lean, sculpted look, ascetic if not for its handsomeness. The face of an intellectual whose great gifts are at the service of Party and Motherland. Such important work!
Peanut put the clipping back in its bag. He took out notepaper, and after some consideration wrote two letters. To whom it may concern. We were spies.
Mangan read the email from the agency. Meeting concurred, excellent work. Pix ran in major markets, strong network pick-up. Well done and thanks to you and crew.
The paper was pleased, too, at Mangan’s story. He’d thrashed the wire services. The piece ran high on the big news sites in Europe, the USA and Japan, but not in China. The Great Firewall blocked it.
Mangan looked out of the window, measuring the approval of his editors against his own sense of incompleteness. He could hear Ting as she wrestled with the story’s fallout. S
he fielded a nasty call from the Jiangxi Provincial Foreign Affairs Bureau. And another one, more polite, but pointed, from the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, very close by, the purveyors of accreditation, all powerful.
“Would Mr. Mangan come to discuss his recent trip to Jiangxi? There are some questions. When might be convenient?”
Nothing, mercifully, from State Security.
Ting did her best to calm the waters, and in good heart, but Mangan fretted. She was vulnerable. The more rules he and Harvey broke, the more vulnerable she became. They had talked about it, agreed that when the day came that she faced questioning because of his infractions, she’d play dumb as to Mangan’s movements and contacts beyond the most inoffensive. Sometimes he kept things from her to protect her, and she pretended not to notice.
Two months earlier they’d had a horribly close call. Mangan had met a leathery old army colonel who had in his possession a copy of a very interesting letter. The letter, ten thousand characters in length, had circulated privately among Party stalwarts. It discussed, in florid terms, the challenges facing the Party: corruption, corruption and corruption in that order. A “disease,” it said, a “betrayal.” The author of the letter was an octogenarian, well past his prime but still an inhabitant of the higher reaches of the political atmosphere. He bore a burnished, bloodied history that lent him authority. The letter was meant only for the Party’s upper ranks, a warning, a plea, a final testament from a calloused old revolutionary. But word of its existence had leaked and the search for a copy became sport for the foreign correspondents.
Over lunch, the officer, fulminating at corrupt officialdom, the limousines, the perfumed whores, had agreed to give Mangan a copy. Mangan had returned to the bureau to find Ting, white-faced and tense, holding out a handwritten note. The colonel called. There’s a problem.
The officer, it transpired, had faxed the thing. Only to find, forty minutes later, two representatives of State Security on his doorstep, asking: why, Colonel, are we faxing such material to foreigners? Why? The old man avoided arrest only by arguing that the letter itself had no secret designation, no baomi, no juemi. How was he to know? It had been a close-run thing. But then he’d called the bureau and insisted on telling Ting, over the bureau’s utterly insecure phone, about the visit from State Security. Mangan had not written a story, instead burned the fax in the bathroom. Ting was frightened.