Night Heron

by Adam Brookes

  The investigator, whose name was Han, and who had spent seven years now working security and counter-intelligence on the missile program, made for the canteen. At this time of night it was half in darkness. A canteen worker in a white cap and an apron sat at one of the tables, leaning forward on the tabletop, asleep on her folded arms. She slept next to a stainless steel pan of baozi covered with a cloth, another of noodles and vegetables.

  He sat in a corner and pulled a packet of Tiananmen cigarettes from his jacket pocket, took one out, threw the packet on the table with a cardboard plock. The canteen worker stirred and looked up for a moment, then let her head fall again. Silence, but for the hum of refrigerators, a vending machine. He lit the cigarette, felt its warm, fibrous wash in his throat.

  Now, the Central Military Commission. Senior Party officials, very senior, and military top brass: the sort of people who don’t get investigated, at least not by Investigator Han. The Leading Small Group on Military Affairs, ditto. But advisers and support staff to the Leading Small Group, that’s a different story. Some wobbly characters in there, scientists, intellectuals, what have you. And we know which of them had access to those numbered reports.

  So that’s where we’ll start.

  Early Sunday morning, cigarette smoke curling through the gray light, the smell of frying meat. Peanut sat in a fetid café in Fengtai. He had been woken by Yin, her hair awry, bleary, banging on his door at five. A phone call, she said. He didn’t leave his name. Said you’d know.

  He sat with his back to the wall, faced the door.

  The professor, when he came, wore a facemask, a blue fleece hat pulled low. He sat at Peanut’s table, arms, neck rigid, fear dripping from him.

  He pulled down the facemask.

  “Did you tell them who I am? Where I live?”

  Peanut dragged on his cigarette, regarded him.

  “Did you tell them?” repeated the professor, his voice taut as wire.

  “Why would I do that?” said Peanut.

  Wen Jinghan gave a tight shake of the head.

  “Because I think someone’s there.”

  “Where?”

  “Near the house. There’s a car,” he hissed.

  “What do they look like?”

  “I don’t know. Not State Security. I don’t think. It’s a silver car. They just drive past, then go.”

  “So give it to me,” said Peanut.

  The professor’s face was crumpling.

  “Who are they? Huasheng, help me.”

  Peanut spoke quickly.

  “It’s nobody. I have told no one, and it’s not police and it’s not State Security. Now give it to me.”

  The professor reached into a pocket. An envelope. Peanut felt the boxy shape of it through the paper.

  “So it worked? Like I said?”

  The professor gave an exhausted shrug, then nodded.

  “I’ll be in touch, Jinghan.” Peanut stood, stubbed out his cigarette. The metallic scrape of the chair against floor tile. The professor watched him, his face drawn, eyes feverish, hyper-alert.

  “Is it finished?” he said.

  But Peanut had left the café, walked fast. The street was quiet, the shop fronts still shuttered. He turned abruptly. Behind him a silver sedan pulled away from the curb, turned into a side street.

  Investigator Han sat at a trestle table covered with green baize cloth. He was snappish and very tired. To his right a mug of tea. To his left an ashtray. Behind him the Deputy Director of the 9th Bureau plus acolytes, silent and watchful. And all around him the dang an—personal files—of three hundred and seventy-six people, each one of whom was known to have received a copy of a numbered report. Certain Questions.

  Investigator Han’s personal system of triage, administered savagely through a long, stale night, had prized the files apart and reordered them in teetering stacks. Before him the stack of utmost urgency: files containing the lives of fifty-seven people whom Investigator Han deemed the most wobbly: academics; those with foreign contacts; those—only a handful, but still a number that surprised Investigator Han—with a history of anti-Party activity. If a full interrogation were authorized, well, the villa in the Western Hills, a team on standby.

  Twenty-four officers of the Ministry of State Security’s 9th Bureau, Anti-Defection and Counter-Surveillance, had been seconded to the investigation group and now sat on metal folding chairs around the room. Investigator Han had split them into two-man teams and was assigning interviews. The Deputy Director spoke into his ear.

  “Speed, Investigator Han. Speed,” he said.

  “Yes, Deputy Director, speed.”

  Officers were putting on coats, leaving the room. Investigator Han imagined the black cars pulling out of the Ministry, fanning out across Beijing.

  27

  SIS, Vauxhall Cross, London

  GODDESS 2’s line was blinking. The technician tapped the screen. Hopko stood, leaning against the console. She looked like a predator scenting, thought Patterson.

  “Wei? Women de pengyou laile, zhunbeihao le.” Our friend’s arrived and is ready. Meaning: RATCHET’s in position.

  “Hao. Xiexie.” Thanks.

  The map screen showed a red indicator where the encounter was to take place, and the route to destination. GODDESS 2 was at the encounter point, the rest of the team sweeping the route as best they could. The encounter point was in a narrow alleyway behind the Landao department store, not far from the Workers’ Stadium, dead to surveillance. The alleyway served as a cut-through between larger thoroughfares, and shoppers frequently used it. It was mid-evening in Beijing, dark. The smog had lessened, but scarves and surgical masks were still commonplace.

  Yeats stood, arms folded, at the back of the suite. The Director, Requirements and Production, had been in earlier, made some comment about “the action” and left. Patterson shifted in her seat, took a mouthful of a sandwich—mushroom and pesto—and waited.

  Mangan had spent forty-five minutes inside the Landao department store. He had gone first to men’s clothing, where he surveyed jeans. He tried on a sweater, a blue zip-up thing of the sort Ting would laugh at. He looked in a mirror. The sweater’s sleeves were short on his lofty, gaunt frame, his winter pallor, his red hair flattened by a winter hat.

  The store was busy and raucous. He walked past rows of sleek televisions. They all showed the same demonstration video of European girls in bikinis, lounging on decks, spreadeagled on river rocks. Knots of men stood and watched the videos. Staff in bow ties hovered and gestured.

  In the household goods department Mangan engaged a member of the sales staff in conversation on the subject of toasters. The girl was very young, a school leaver, Mangan guessed. She wore her hair pulled off her face, gathered in a long ponytail, and she wore silver-framed glasses. Her little blue waistcoat fitted poorly, and her black bow tie was loose on her collar, which Mangan realized he found poignant. These Japanese toasters, she said, are very good but they are very expensive. Mangan found it in himself—he was struggling—to agree, and to ask whether, perhaps, there was a Chinese-made toaster available. The girl smiled, yes, of course. This Chinese toaster, she said, is made in the city of Qingdao, and is the equal of the Japanese toaster in every way, and is a good deal cheaper. Mangan bought the Chinese-made toaster. The cashier gave him a flimsy receipt, stamped with a little red chop. You speak Chinese very well, said the girl. Mangan said nali, modestly.

  With the toaster in a plastic carrier bag in his left hand, his right hand free, Mangan descended two stories by escalator. It cascaded down the central atrium of the store, sleek and silvery. He looked at the huge backlit advertisements for lipstick, lingerie, the models impossibly willowy, pale, their blue-black hair. Mangan was tempted to look over his shoulder, but he resisted the urge, as Charteris had told him to, because hyper-vigilance, Philip, is a very noticeable trait. And you will not be carrying a mobile phone, Philip, now will you? No, David, mobile phones leave spoor. They betray our location and br
oadcast our words; they make us targets, kill us.

  At exactly seventeen minutes past eight he left the department store. He turned to his right, raising his carrier bag and turning side-on to move through a clot of people. It was cold. The store had loudspeakers attached to its frontage that broadcast a distorted stream of promises and exhortations. The frontage was floodlit and festooned with balloons and banners. A man touched him on the sleeve, tried to ask him something. He walked on. The mouth of the alleyway was dark and partly hidden by a builder’s skip. He stepped slowly into the gloom. And as he did so the large figure with its rolling, aggressive gait was almost on him. He raised his right hand slightly, opened it, to feel the man’s fingers fluttering around his, then pressing the key into his palm. Mangan took it, closed his fist around it, and walked forward quickly. As he approached the far end of the alleyway he put the key into his coat pocket and switched the carrier bag from his left hand to his right. You may feel relief at this point, Philip, that the brush pass has worked as planned, Charteris had told him, but that relief is misplaced. You are now carrying.

  “GODDESS 2 on the line.”

  “Wei? Hao xiaoxi! Women de pengyou shoudao xin le. Ta hao gaoxing a!” Good news. Our friend received the letter. He’s very happy. The transfer has been effected. No sign of hostile surveillance.

  “Hao jile! Feichang gan xie.” Excellent. Thank you very much.

  Yeats made a small pumping action with his arm. Hopko stood, hands on hips, chewing her lip. The technician smiled.

  “Not over yet,” said Hopko.

  Investigator Han paced the corridor, smoked, murmured into his phone. The interviews were going slowly, the officers too thorough, too cautious. Kick some fucking doors down, he told them. Frighten them. Stir the pot. Don’t look for evidence, look for signs.

  Still nothing.

  But it wouldn’t be long.

  28

  Beijing

  Mangan went south on Dongdaqiao, in the direction of the embassy. He walked quickly, keeping his gaze straight ahead, the carrier bag, in his right hand, swinging at his side. The traffic was stalled, the buses packed in the darkness, their occupants swaying, dead-eyed. There would be snow tonight, supposedly, but the air was dry, thick with dust and fumes. Mangan wondered if there were any moisture in it at all. He passed a vast new apartment and mall complex, its surfaces glinting, tessellated in the night. Where its silvered walls met the pavement, the graffiti artist had been at work; the crow again, with its bulbous, grotesque goggles, the stencil a little imprecise this time, smeary, as if the artist had rushed his work beneath the surveillance cameras. Mangan stayed in shadow where he could. To every lamppost, a camera. Half a million of them in Beijing, he’d read.

  And then, walking towards him as he rounded the corner on to Guanghua Lu, Charteris.

  Mangan made to extend his left hand, the gadget wrapped inside it, but Charteris’s hands remained in his pockets, and in his eyes, a warning.

  Mangan peeled away immediately, made to cross the street. Glancing back, he saw Charteris turning the corner. Behind him, nobody. A taxi was grinding slowly along the curb, looking for fares. Mangan hailed it and got in. He gave the driver the name of a hotel. He looked down at his hands to find them trembling, damp.

  “I have GODDESS 1.”

  “Wei? Xin meiyou dao.” The letter hasn’t arrived. The pass has not taken place.

  Patterson stood, felt the spike of adrenalin in her gut. Hopko leaned and spoke into the microphone.

  “Weishenme?” Why?

  “Haoxiang mei you ji.” It seems he didn’t post it. Officer aborted.

  Hopko, speaking urgently now, “You wenti ma?” Is there a problem? Have you identified hostile surveillance?

  “Yinggai mei wenti ba.” I don’t think there’s a problem. But the voice sounded defensive.

  “Zai shi yi shi.” Let’s try again. Move to fallback.

  “Hao.” Moving to fallback.

  “What the hell is that about?” said Patterson.

  Charteris’s line came up on the screen. The technician brought it in.

  “It’s me. Sorry I didn’t turn up. I wasn’t feeling well,” he said. I believe I may have detected hostile surveillance.

  “I see. Well, everybody else was fine,” said Hopko. No hostile surveillance reported.

  A pause, just the sound of Charteris’s breathing hissing on the line. Patterson reached over, closed the microphone.

  “Fallback, Val,” said Patterson.

  Hopko considered.

  “Yes, fallback,” said Yeats. “Now.”

  Hopko closed her eyes for a moment. Patterson saw her jaw clench. She opened the microphone.

  “We’d like to move on,” said Hopko. Proceed to fallback.

  Another pause on the line, the rustle of Charteris’s movement.

  “Well, okay.” Officer proceeding to fallback.

  Mangan sat in the lobby lounge of the Crowne Plaza, watching the doors, wondering about cameras. A smiling waiter approached, gestured at the menu. Mangan ordered sparkling water, left money on the table so he was ready to move.

  Then Charteris was striding across the lobby, nonchalant, hands in pockets. He made for the men’s lavatory, went in. Mangan watched the door close behind him. He waited ten seconds.

  Up and moving now, past the check-in desk. Two hotel security goons with earpieces stood self-importantly by the main doors, running their gaze across the lobby. Mangan tried to ignore them. Do something with your hand, she’d told him. Look occupied. As he walked he checked the time on his wristwatch, patted his pockets for his mobile phone, pulled it out, looked at it, even though it was switched off. He pushed open the door to the men’s lavatory. Charteris was standing at the basins, rinsing his hands. No one else. Charteris took a towel, dried. As Mangan approached him, he let one hand fall to his side, palm out. Mangan pressed the key into it and spoke quietly.

  “What happened?”

  “Outside the embassy. I thought there was a watcher, in a car. I was wrong. It’s nothing.”

  And he was gone.

  Mangan leaned against the countertop, breathing.

  “Dao le.” The letter’s arrived. Officer has re-entered the embassy.

  “Hao. Hai you shi ma?” Anything more?

  “Meiyou biede shi.” Nothing more. No sign of hostile surveillance.

  “Na, ni hui jia ba.” Go home.

  “Xianzai jiu zou.” We’re leaving now.

  And with that, Hopko authorized the GODDESS team to disperse and return to their Hong Kong base as quickly and quietly as they could. And Patterson went down to the cafeteria for coffee, and they made their way slowly back to the P section, where she and Hopko sat in silence for a few minutes, before Hopko stood suddenly and went off to find Yeats, to tell him that the principal operational phase of STONE CIRCLE had been completed.

  Granny Poon peeled off from the target and walked south. As she rounded the corner on to Jianguomenwai Dajie she took the phone from her pocket. She removed the SIM card, bent it double between her thumb and index fingers till she felt the plastic split, then she dropped the two halves in two separate rubbish bins, the battery and phone in a third. She hailed a taxi. She opened the door and climbed in slowly, one hand atop the open door to steady herself, an elderly lady, a little rheumatic perhaps, taking her time. And as she lowered herself into the seat, she glanced back at the passers-by. And a man smiled at her. A man in his thirties, with a baseball cap, a short black jacket, perhaps a golfer’s jacket, jeans of a light color, and white training shoes bearing the mark of a famous brand in red. She sensed, more than saw, his lingering look and she fastened the image of him in her mind. She sat in the back seat, closed the door and asked the driver to take her to Beijing South Railway Station, where she would take the express to Tianjin, and from there a flight to Hong Kong. Winston would take the bags.

  She sat in the back of the taxi in a stale cigarette reek. The taxi ground slowly through the Beij
ing night.

  Someone was watching, probing.

  Who?

  PART THREE

  The Product.

  29

  GCHQ, Cheltenham

  The gadget, wrapped in polythene and placed in a plastic container impervious to dust or water, went by secure bag. The bag—a large black briefcase of the sort lawyers might carry—remained handcuffed to the wrist of the courier for the ten-hour British Airways flight to London.

  At Heathrow a van waited to transport courier and bag to the town of Cheltenham, where, in a basement of the enormous doughnut-shaped structure that housed Government Communications Headquarters, the exploitation team waited. Patterson sat against one wall, chilly in the air-conditioning, and eyed them. Six linguists, three computer technicians, eight analysts. They sat at terminals arranged on a horseshoe table in a secure computer lab. A cryptographic team was on standby. Late afternoon now, the flight was on time, the courier due any minute.

  Hopko, of course, charmed them, flitting from terminal to terminal, asking questions, being interested, perching herself on the table, leaning in to hear explanations of software, databases, digital dictionaries. She spoke at length to one woman—a BBC, she called herself, British-Born Chinese—who would be the lead translator and who seemed to have absorbed an astonishing vocabulary of Chinese military terms. Hopko tested her playfully on missiles. Throw weight, drawdown curve, midcourse phase. But the woman wanted to know context, please, Val. What sort of material are we expecting? Hopko just shrugged and smiled and said she had no idea what would be on the drive other than, well, “a largish chunk of a very secret Chinese network.” This prompted grins around the table. The analysts looked at one another and raised their eyebrows, shifted in their seats. One boy—a technician—overweight, his hair gelled, adopted a mock frown and spoke up to Hopko.

  “So we might be here a while, then?”

  Hopko played along.

  “Oh, definitely. All leave canceled, I’m afraid.”