Night Heron

by Adam Brookes

  “Yes.”

  “But they let you go.”

  “Yes.”

  “They let you go because you don’t matter. You realize that, don’t you?”

  Mangan shook his head.

  “They let me go because it would be too much trouble to keep me.”

  The artist waved a hand dismissively.

  “If you mattered, they wouldn’t let you go.”

  He thought suddenly of the bristle-haired man, his insistence, the weight of his words. Only you, Mang An. Why do I matter to him? he thought.

  They waited for a taxi. A few snowflakes swirled in the headlights. Ting took his arm.

  “Was that okay?” she said.

  “I loved the performance. And your friends are, um, exciting.”

  “They are, what do you say, self-involved.”

  “No, I admire them. They take risks.”

  She looked at him, half-smiling.

  “You’re thoughtful.”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  A taxi came and they drove across Beijing, back to the city center. Mangan told the driver to go to Ting’s apartment block. She took his hand.

  “Come up. I’ll make you ginger tea,” she said, then kissed him softly. “And for breakfast, rice porridge with pig’s ears.”

  Patterson passed Hopko the telegram from Charteris.

  “It’s brief.”

  “Is this all he’s got?” said Hopko. She stirred a cup of coffee. Patterson read.

  /REPORT

  1/ Philip MANGAN is in his mid-thirties. He has worked in Beijing for four years as a freelance reporter. He is accredited with the Chinese government—as all foreign reporters must be—for a major newspaper. He files for other outlets, too, including for a small London-based production house that syndicates news footage to television networks in several countries. His reputation in Beijing among other journalists is that of an independent-minded and original reporter. He has not sought a secure staff position with a major media organization, claiming to prefer the freedom that freelancing brings.

  2/ MANGAN grew up in Orpington, Kent, the only son of a doctor and a housewife. Both parents are deceased. He attended private schools and University College London, where he studied Politics. He took courses in Mandarin Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies. His spoken Chinese is proficient.

  3/ MANGAN’s reporting tends to foreground the political and social aspects of China’s development. He reports less on economics or business, and there is little quantitative work in his reporting. He has focused particularly on human rights issues, state repression of religious and ethnic identities, and incidents of social unrest. It may be that, as a freelance, he is merely satisfying market demand for the “scary China” narrative. But while the agenda he adheres to may tend towards the sensational, his treatment of the material generally does not. His stories are—for the most part—balanced and well-researched, though he can be impetuous. Two years ago he incorrectly reported the demise of a senior Politburo member, an error the Chinese government found hard to forgive, and his editors found even harder. He has been detained by the authorities on a number of occasions, and is ready to test the boundaries of their tolerance. He appears frustrated at the limits of what a foreign journalist can achieve in China.

  4/ MANGAN employs a part-time assistant, named ZHAO Ting, a PRC national. ZHAO Ting, who is well-connected and comes from a wealthy Beijing family, provides him with many of his leads and handles administration and payment—something at which MANGAN is hopelessly inept, by his own admission.

  5/ MANGAN works with a freelance cameraman named Paul HARVEY, an Australian national. HARVEY is a well-liked figure in East Asian media circles, and his decision to work with MANGAN lends the latter a certain cachet.

  6/ MANGAN is something of a loner. He appears to have no strong roots or links to any one place. He drinks moderately and may use soft drugs. He pays little attention to his personal appearance and gives the impression that he is unimpressed by what others may see as the glamorous side of his work as a foreign correspondent. However, he does have an ego, and while he would never admit it, craves professional recognition.

  7/ MANGAN may prove a difficult target for recruitment. He has the finely tuned antennae of the professional reporter and will quickly recognize an approach for what it is. His sense of professional journalistic ethics will militate against accepting, but may not prove an insuperable obstacle. Money may help, since he appears constantly short of it. But his desire for recognition and his sense of frustration at the limitations of journalism may provide a case officer with an avenue to secure his cooperation.

  /ENDS

  “Money, vanity, frustration. Well, thank you, Charteris,” said Hopko.

  Patterson drew her travel documents, passport, credit card. She’d be using the “Rachel Davies” identity.

  Mangan was ironing a shirt. A suitcase lay open on the bed. He heard the door slam and Harvey talking animatedly to Ting. A pause, then a howl. He walked into the front room. Harvey lay slumped on the sofa, pointing. Ting was holding up a copy of the Trib.

  China’s long and controversial campaign to suppress new religious sects has entered a new, intense phase.

  Security authorities have established a secret network of isolation camps in which young male adherents of banned religions are detained indefinitely.

  It was a good piece, Mangan saw, thoroughly reported. It had satellite images of the camps, their locations, eyewitness accounts, and reaction from the U.S. and Europe. He knew the byline, a Hong Kong-based correspondent who came in and out of the mainland.

  “Scooped,” said Harvey. “Scooped to buggery.”

  Ting laughed, but then bit her lip and gave Mangan a wide-eyed look.

  “Sorry, Philip,” she said.

  He shrugged, tossed the paper over his shoulder, and it landed on the floor.

  “There goes the Pulitzer,” he said.

  “Get him,” said Harvey. “The man who didn’t care.”

  Ting looked puzzled.

  “I thought you’d be upset,” she said.

  “Nope,” said Mangan.

  She looked at him quizzically.

  “You are upset, aren’t you.”

  He rubbed a hand across his face.

  “Bollocks. Yes, a bit.”

  “Well, I’m so fucking upset, I’m going out for lunch,” said Harvey, and stood up.

  He and Ting took Mangan by the arms and marched him out of the bureau, a coat over his head, Harvey kicking the door shut behind him. They went to a little bistro in the Sheraton and drank an absurdly priced bottle of Sancerre.

  Later, back at the bureau, Ting dozed on the sofa and Mangan frantically finished packing and then it was time to go to the airport. Ting held him lazily for a few moments, smiling, her eyes closed, and let her lips brush his cheek and then waved him away.

  A town car, the driver called it, not a limo. Mangan’s mistake. But it was big and black and air-conditioned and waiting for him when he landed at Changi. The passenger in the back was provided with mints and bottled water and a weighty, glossy magazine called Elite: Excellence in Business Travel, whose reporters spared no effort in bringing to the demanding reader the very latest in spas, boutique resorts and thread counts. After thumbing it for a few minutes Mangan decided his personal favorite was the “Happenings” section. Delors Luxe Global Ambassador Shelley Kwok poses with Lars Nesser of Island Oriental Hotels at Orchard charity fundraiser. In the photo, a minute and leathery woman of indeterminate age leaned into a heavy, pale man in a cummerbund. They held champagne glasses, and were joyously startled by the camera flash and their own good fortune. Astrid Van Sittart, co-founder of Luxe Connection Brand Development with friends at Bali Tide launch. Astrid, lithe and Eurasian, in strapless dress and chunky silver jewelry, was overjoyed to be with her friends. Pages and pages of it. The car hissed through light, quiet traffic, beneath overpasses covered in ivy. Ah, Singapore.
r />   The “conference” was indeed small, intimate even. Twelve people sat at a long table in fierce air-conditioning. Mangan fought his way through notes he’d scribbled that morning: The Followers—Rebels or Reactionaries? Polite applause. Questions, mostly earnest, mostly tinged with sympathy for the Communist Party’s legal position if not its methods. “Surely, Mr. Mangan,” came one, “the exigencies of maintaining stability?” The audience was largely Singaporean, politely distrustful of the western reporter’s motives. An Australian worthy was in the chair—formerly, Mangan remembered, he had been something big in ASIO, Australian Security and Intelligence.

  At the far end of the table was a quiet woman, British, Mangan guessed. Tall, straight-backed and black, in a severe gray suit. Her eyes, which never left him, were like flint.

  When it was over the Australian mumbled his apologies and handed him off to the Brit, who stood patiently, waiting for the after-chat to finish.

  “That was fascinating, Mr. Mangan,” she said. She introduced herself as Rachel Davies and produced a card that gave her affiliation as United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Research Department. She gave a tight smile.

  “I was hoping we might be able to meet for dinner,” she said. Mangan, surprised, heard it as something like an order.

  The restaurant was called Du Fu, after the poet. They sat in a discreet booth of black leather and etched glass. The Foreign Office ordered rather well, Mangan noticed. Tiny, trembling dumplings, towers of silky duck and taro root. And then lobster and bamboo in nests of crisp noodles. Eels in ginger.

  “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve followed your work,” said Rachel Davies, with the warmth of a steel rail. Mangan mentally put inverted commas round her name. “Rachel Davies,” drinking sparkling water. What on earth does she want? he thought. Is she always this uptight? They talked about the Followers, life in Beijing, pollution levels, press corps gossip. “Rachel Davies” was doing her best to be fascinated by all of it. Yes, thank you, Mangan would have a second glass of wine.

  “Now please forgive me, Mr. Mangan, but I’m going to talk shop with you for a moment.”

  Mangan waited.

  “The fact is, you’ve caused a bit of a stir.”

  “Have I? How?”

  “David Charteris is careful. He wanted to be sure about a few things, so he showed that document to one or two people.”

  What?

  “And, well, a stir,” said “Rachel Davies.”

  “He said he was going to give it to the Embassy Security Officer,” Mangan said. “He said it was for my own good.”

  “Yes, and he did, of course.” A tepid smile. “The thing is, people who understand these things say that the document appears to be important.”

  Another pause. Mangan fought the impulse to respond, and let the silence stretch out. The woman smoothed her hair, sat even straighter.

  “We rather assumed you’d want to write the story.”

  Mangan felt as if he needed time he didn’t have.

  “And what is the story?” he said.

  She looked surprised. One elbow on the table, she framed a headline with her fingers.

  “Oh, come on, Philip. Chinese missile program far more advanced than thought. DF-41 in testing. East Asia, Europe, America all thrown for a bloody great loop.” She looked expectantly at him.

  Mangan spoke slowly.

  “Is this really news to the UK government? Or anyone else? I’d be surprised if it were.”

  “Rachel Davies,” or whatever her name was, leaned in again, serious now.

  “Well, that’s the thing. It is news to us, you see. And we are way off the record now. We haven’t seen a blind, bloody thing about the DF-41 for years. We thought it had gone away. And now you come along with your mysterious visitor and his bit of paper.”

  Mangan’s mouth felt a little dry; he took a sip of water. She went on.

  “And as I’m sure you know, Philip, it’s more than just a new, shiny toy, isn’t it? If it works, the DF-41 will be able to hit Europe. And Los Angeles. It can carry multiple warheads. It’s road mobile, which means it’s a second-strike weapon. Sounds a bit like a strategic nuclear capability to me. Like what the Americans and the Russians have, and even us. Might this not be China stepping up, Philip? Reaching for superpower status? What do you think?”

  She was unsmiling.

  “All right,” Mangan said. “If that’s true, if the Chinese are building a missile that changes the game, and we don’t know about it, it’s a very good story. I would want to write it. But I don’t have any means of confirming whether the document is genuine. So no story.”

  She nodded.

  “Well, exactly. And Her Majesty’s Government is in the same position. We don’t know if the bloody document is genuine either. So I wonder if we might be able to help each other a little.”

  “And how would we do that?”

  “It’s not uncommon for your kind and mine to collaborate a little.”

  Not so uncommon, Mangan knew. Though such offers of collaboration had never come to him. Until now.

  “Why would you do that?” he said.

  “Because if this story is going to run, we would rather it ran in a way we can live with, at a time of our choosing.”

  Here’s the rub, thought Mangan.

  “So I write the story, but not yet,” he said.

  “That’s part of it.”

  Mangan had the sense of a scene reaching its climax. She went on.

  “Like you, Philip, we need to know if this document is genuine. So we need to know the source. Who is he and where did he get it?” She left it hanging, reached for a piece of duck and glistening taro root.

  Mangan blinked.

  “You want me to go back to him,” he said.

  “How else, would you say?”

  “You’ve got his number. It’s on the letter that Charteris stole. Give him a tinkle.”

  “Not sure Her Majesty’s Government can quite do that, Philip. Easier for you, though. You’re a reporter.”

  “One minute you’ve Charteris telling me I’m at terrible risk and prattling about his duty. And the next you want me to go back to him.”

  She didn’t reply immediately, just rested her dark eyes on him. He returned the gaze. Her expression didn’t change.

  “Philip, it will be your story, and they’ll read it in the Cabinet Office. And Number Ten. And the Pentagon. And the White House. The people who count. It’s a scoop, Philip, the sort that comes along once or twice in a career, and it matters. The work of a really serious journalist. And it’s yours. If you want it.”

  “I can’t handle any documents.”

  “You won’t have to. Just ask him who he is, Philip. And how he got that cover sheet. We’ll do the rest, and we’ll tell you what it all means, and when the time is right, it’ll be your story.”

  Mangan felt her eyes on him. He fought to slow down.

  “This is… a risk.”

  “Rachel Davies” was absorbed in picking up a piece of lobster. She cleared her throat.

  “I thought you chaps, reporters, took the odd risk, sometimes.”

  Mangan could sense her hard, silent laughter.

  He walked to clear his head, down past Boat Quay, the music and laughter from the bars clattering into the street, light rippling on the water. Clutches of brokers from the big trading houses stood holding bottles of lager, raucous in the night. He walked to the end of the quay, smelled the sea.

  What on earth was that? Had he just been pitched? Who was she?

  We know who she was, Mangan thought. And, yes, he had just been pitched.

  So. “A little collaboration.” Was the story worth it? Well, yes. It would be a series of front-page pieces for the paper, no doubt, and much more besides. It would be a moody analytical piece in an influential journal; a muscular op-ed in the States. It was hot and cold running interviews on radio and TV and the net. It was a scoop, and everyone loves a scoop.


  A little collaboration. Is that all they were offering? She had given him a London phone number. But best to talk to David Charteris for now. Let him know what you’re up to. Tell him when you’re going to meet the source, won’t you? That’s important, isn’t it? Don’t go to meetings like that without telling someone in advance.

  He searched his feelings, as he stood there, Singapore’s warm, wet night against his skin, and turned over all the reasons for gracefully declining. A journalist does not sell his birthright. A journalist is immune to the blandishments of the establishment. A journalist is too busy telling the truth.

  Or trying to. And failing.

  He looked for a cab, and there was one waiting. Its lights flickered on and its engine started just as he reached the curb.

  Patterson made straight for the High Commission, swiped herself into the station, got on a secure line to London, to Hopko, who was abrupt. She wondered whether Yeats was listening in.

  “What did you make of him?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest. Erratic, self-involved. A journalist, in other words. But I think he’s tempted.”

  “Is he capable?”

  “I don’t doubt he’s capable. He’s bright. He knows Beijing, and he has a notion of security, how it works. He could act as access agent, if he were willing.”

  “But is he willing? Or will he write about us in the Sunday supplements?”

  “That I can’t tell you. Yet.”

  “I think he’ll do it. They usually do, the journalists, can’t resist a bit of action,” said Hopko. “And, Trish, I think it’s time to get Granny Poon moving.”

  In the P section it was agreed that the All China Moulded Plastics Industry Expo could not have been better timed. And to Patterson, back in the office straight from the airport, fell the task of urging Yip Lo Exports Inc. of Kowloon to attend.

  This she had done—a salad by her side on the desk—by leaving a message in an obscure password-protected corner of the company’s website. A representative of Yip Lo, closing up the office on Soy Street for the day, made a last routine check and found the message waiting. He read it and knew to act immediately. The protocol was to visit a commercial email provider at a particular time. There waited a second message, placed in the Drafts folder just moments earlier. Attached, a file. Yip Lo’s representative opened and read the attached file on a laptop computer that was kept locked in a safe. The safe did double duty as an altar, bearing a shrine to Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, in the Poon family home. The attached file could be read only by using certain software that was not commercially available. The software frequently infuriated the representatives of Yip Lo Exports with its elephantine slowness.