Night Heron

by Adam Brookes

  “We have orders from London,” said the man. “I’m afraid it’s essential they be followed to the letter.”

  The woman nodded.

  “This is for your own safety,” she said. “Taipei is not secure. You must be moved.”

  “Then we can all relax a bit,” said the man.

  For two days Mangan had done nothing but move, from the speedboat to a rust-streaked trawler that heaved and wallowed in the Taiwan Strait, to a lonely dock, by night, at the far fringes of some port, where they took him ashore and Mangan smelled salt air, diesel oil and refuse. They put him in one van and took Peanut towards another, but Peanut stopped and turned around and stood in the darkness, the sound of the sea lapping against the dock. And he just gave Mangan a long look, and nodded, and turned away, and Mangan hadn’t seen him again.

  They drove for two hours, the fat man sleeping in the passenger’s seat, his head lolling, the silenced pistol in his lap. They brought him to this flat, empty but for a table and a rice cooker and a television and tatami mats on the floor. He was somewhere in the eastern outskirts of Taipei, he thought. The rain came down hour after hour. He sat and smoked, watched sitcoms on a satellite channel. A doctor came to examine the contusions blooming on his lower back and probe his internal organs for damage. Mangan was pronounced sound.

  The burst of shock and adrenalin that accompanied his flight and exfiltration receded. He began to think of himself as a murderer: the murderer of an unnamed man in a truck stop, a man who, as the life spilled from him, wanted his little boy; the murderer of Paul Harvey, whose death—the cartwheel, the jutting limbs—visited him every waking minute; and, perhaps, the murderer of his delicate, loyal lover. He knew nothing of Ting’s fate, and the uncertainty hung like a slough on his mind. The murderer, too, of a time that he had loved, that they had all loved, the three of them.

  Now he considered the demise of the two British Intelligence Officers who sat opposite him, as they told him he was to be moved, tonight, Philip, a flight, very quick, very comfortable, and let’s get you away from here.

  “Explanations will have to wait,” said the man, “but everything will be explained, and then we’ll start thinking about your next move.”

  There was a pause.

  “But you do understand that it’s over now. It’s absolutely over.”

  He understood what was over, what he had murdered.

  The two SIS officers drove him through Taipei’s shuttered streets. At midnight he was escorted aboard a business jet at a silent military airport. As the jet taxied to the runway he glimpsed Taiwanese F-16s beneath hardened shelters, their cockpits glowing.

  By morning he was in Singapore, at the cool villa near Phoenix Park, where a sandy-haired man of military bearing made eggs and bacon and coffee, and told him politely that he wasn’t to leave the villa, though he could walk in the garden.

  Patterson checked the recording devices were running and made her way to the villa’s living room. She turned to the minder.

  “Please bring him in now.”

  The minder disappeared and a moment later returned with Mangan, who was barefoot and wore an ill-fitting blue shirt and jeans. Mangan stopped and stared at her. She tried to read him, but couldn’t. She looked straight back at him.

  “Sit down, Philip,” she said.

  Mangan hesitated, then moved carefully to an armchair.

  “Are you all right?”

  Mangan just stared. Patterson spoke quietly.

  “We can repair much of this damage, but we need to know exactly what happened.”

  “How?” said Mangan. “How will we repair the damage?”

  “There may be ways to help her,” said Patterson.

  Mangan sat forward.

  “What do you know?” he said. “Tell me.”

  “The last we heard was that Ting is in Qincheng Prison,” said Patterson. She watched Mangan’s eyes close, his shrinking in the chair. “She is going to be tried, we’re told, but we don’t know what for.”

  The girl matching Zhao Ting’s description had been spotted by a doctor in Qincheng, a decent, courageous man who believed he was passing information to an underground human rights network, when in reality he was talking to BND, German Intelligence. Patterson had read the encounter report from German liaison. A car, a night meeting in a village out in the wilds of Changping District, near the Ming tombs. The doctor had smoked and described the girl they’d brought to him. She was a wreck, shaking, blood in her urine, said the doctor, but some strength to her, a glint in her eye. As he palpated her neck, he’d asked her quietly if she’d been tortured, and she just gave a tight shake of the head. One of the prison guards had told the doctor that she had guanxi, connections. So you never know, he’d said. You just never know.

  Mangan had his head in his hands.

  “You must accept that your pursuing her case will hurt her, not help her,” said Patterson.

  “How do you work that out?”

  “Philip Mangan is a blown agent. There’s nothing he can do to help. But it’s just possible that with patience and with time we may be able to do things.”

  Mangan didn’t move.

  Patterson took a breath.

  “I must tell you, too, that Paul Harvey’s family have been informed that he died in a traffic accident. The Australian authorities have accepted that this is the case. And so, I’m afraid, do we.”

  Mangan looked up at her.

  “Do we?” he said.

  “Yes, we do.”

  There was a pause.

  “And I must ask you, too, if you are still in possession of the drive.”

  “Still in possession of the drive?”

  “Please give it to me,” she said.

  “You are fucking relentless.”

  “It’s important you give it to me.”

  “Where do they make people like you?”

  “I was made in a number of places, Philip.”

  From Mangan, something that could have been the ghost of a smile.

  “Why do you want the drive?” he said.

  “Because I want to know what’s on it.”

  “I told you what’s on it.”

  “I want to see if you’re right.”

  “What’s your real name?” he said.

  She blinked, looked down.

  “Philip…“

  “Tell me.”

  She was silent for a moment.

  “You may as well know.”

  “I may as well.”

  “It’s Patricia. Everyone calls me Trish.” It felt, she realized, like an act of separation, of rebellion, even. Name as exploit. Truth as vulnerability.

  Mangan eyed her, wondering.

  “Well, Trish, here you are.”

  And he held out a closed fist and dropped the drive into her hand.

  For the next two days they walked Mangan through Operation STONE CIRCLE. Patterson was surprised to find herself conducting the debrief, Hopko briskly deferring to her. So she questioned Mangan, while Hopko listened from another room. She had expected to hear recriminations from him, but he seemed passive and reflective. He spoke as if describing a sickness or a wound, she thought. In her rejoinders to him, confident now, she carefully matched his tone and pace of speech, reflected his words back to him, let him change his mind. Every couple of hours she would take him out to walk around the garden, and Mangan would smoke and scuff the grass with his bare feet.

  It was when they got to the truck driver that he broke. He was pale and his breath started coming quickly and then turned to great, shuddering sobs.

  “Everyone here knows that feeling,” she said. She left the room and the sandy-haired minder went in and sat with him, and put a tattooed arm around him and let it play out.

  Hopko made her spend an inordinate amount of time on the phone calls.

  “So tell me again, Philip. You took the call on which phone?”

  “On my mobile phone.”

  “And where were you?”<
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  “In the flat.”

  “And what did Peanut say?”

  “He said police and security had come. That we were blown, that we should get out.”

  “Did he say where they had come to?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know where he was?”

  “No, he never told me where he was, where he lived, anything.” Mangan rubbed his eyes.

  “So you’re certain he never told you where he lived? Never mentioned it on a phone?”

  “I am as certain as I was last time you asked me.”

  “And he never told you the name of the sub-source?”

  Mangan sighed.

  “Why not ask the pampered prick in the limo?” he said. “The new management? Or one of his thugs. What about them?”

  “Believe me, Philip, we will ask them,” said Patterson.

  But she thought, Will we? Do we think we’ll get an answer?

  Mangan turned to her, angry now.

  “Who the hell were those people?” he said.

  They are our future, Patterson thought. She said nothing.

  “Why were we told to go and do it all over again?”

  “Because you were very successful the first time,” she said, quietly. “And people got greedy.”

  Mangan raised a hand, let it fall.

  “Is that how we were blown?”

  We don’t know, thought Patterson. Do we, Val?

  After a moment, he said, “How did this happen?” He looked exhausted, hollow.

  “That is what we would like, very much, to find out,” said Hopko, later.

  Patterson sat with him while he signed the documents. There was some money, there were undertakings, and there were plans, all conveyed by a lawyer, a cheerful, brittle blonde who’d flown out from Vauxhall Cross. The paper, she imparted breathlessly, had lately discovered a desire for coverage of East Africa, and had realized that Mangan was the ideal correspondent. Great stories there, Philip. Plenty of work. And we can help you find a place. Let’s get you back to London and we’ll get it all worked out. And your stuff from Beijing is being packed up, what’s left of it after the security people went through it. And we’re going to help you round out your departure from China.

  And suddenly it seemed to be over.

  The lawyer left, and Patterson started packing up her files. Mangan spent hours in the garden, reading. Patterson watched him from a window, as he lay spread-eagled on the lawn, lean and disheveled. They ate a meal together, Mangan regarding her across the table. He tried to draw her out, where she was from, where she had been. But she decided he was only trying to distract himself from his own turmoil. And anyway, it was insecure. They finished eating in silence.

  Hopko spent most of the night at the station, and then, in the morning, turned up drawn and unsmiling at the villa. She motioned to Patterson and the two of them went to where Mangan lay on the grass. He shielded his eyes from the sun and looked up at them.

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “She’s my boss,” said Patterson.

  Mangan got to his feet, and Hopko held out her hand with a jangle of silver bracelets.

  “We would not normally meet,” said Hopko, “but I wanted to thank you in person.”

  Mangan raised his eyebrows, said nothing.

  “It’s been quite the adventure,” she said, deadpan.

  He waited a beat.

  “You’ll understand if I don’t see it that way,” he said.

  “It was a success. You may not see that, but it’s true. So thank you, Philip, and good luck.”

  She made to turn away, but hesitated.

  “I know you were told it’s over, Philip. But it may not be. You need to know that.”

  She walked from the room, Mangan staring after her.

  Patterson took him to the airport. He got out of the car, and they stood on the pavement for a while in the warm evening and he smoked a cigarette, the planes roaring overhead. He was unshaven, and looked tired and rumpled, but calm. She stood, arms folded, trying not to look like a soldier, or a spy.

  “What will you do, now?” he said.

  “Back to London.”

  “No, I mean, will you stay with this… profession?”

  “Do you think I shouldn’t?”

  “You seem, troubled by it.”

  “Do I? I thought I was relentless.”

  “Yes, you are that.” He paused, tilted his head. “But you seem as if you do it under duress. You seem as if you’re in some sort of exile.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “China makes exiles of us,” he said. He reached out and put his hand on her arm. Her instinct was to pull away, but she forced herself to remain still, forced a smile.

  “I hope I see you again, Trish. Next time I plan to learn your surname,” he said. And then Mangan turned and walked through the hissing glass doors into the terminal, and she lost sight of him in the throng of people. She sat in the car, and breathed slowly to stop the tears coming.

  38

  Singapore

  It was dark by the time Patterson got back to the High Commission. She went to the station, swiped herself in. Hopko was waiting for her, and Charteris was there, just off the Beijing flight, red-eyed. Beneath the fluorescent lights he looked exhausted. He stared at Patterson.

  “Surprised to see you here,” he said.

  She returned his look.

  “Can’t think why,” she said.

  He made to speak again, but Hopko turned on the two of them.

  “Save it,” she said.

  They made their way into the secure room, closing the heavy glass door behind them. Hopko lowered the blinds. They sat, Charteris sullen.

  “So is it official, then?” said Charteris.

  “Is what official?” said Hopko.

  Charteris gave an exaggerated sigh.

  “Is what official? That Yeats has gone. That Yeats’s is the head that rolled. That Valentina Hopko survives. Is that official?”

  Hopko smiled, but Patterson saw the hardness in her eyes.

  “Roly Yeats has announced his immediate retirement from the Service, David,” she said. “But I rather think he’ll land on his feet. Don’t you?”

  “And you’ve made sure that Sancho Panza here”—he gestured idly at Patterson—“still has a job, too.”

  “Fuck you, David,” said Patterson.

  He was shouting now, at her.

  “Next time kindly give us a little warning when you’re about to bring the entire fucking house down, will you?”

  Patterson was standing, felt her own anger hot in her temples, let her voice rise.

  “I saved the lives of our agents.”

  “They were not yours to bloody save.” He was jabbing a finger at her. “That operation. CALIPER. Exfiltration! Using smugglers! Taiwanese people-traffickers! Are you out of your fucking mind? You could have started a war. You practically did, from what I hear.”

  “So where were you?” she yelled at him. “State Security was all over them, and where the hell were you? I got them out! And trust me, I’ve had my bollocking already.”

  Hopko had taken off her glasses, and watched them.

  “I put her up to it,” she said to Charteris.

  Patterson said nothing.

  “CALIPER was a contingency. But I felt we were going to need it when…“

  Hopko stopped speaking.

  “When what?” said Patterson.

  “When operational control was taken away from us,” said Hopko.

  Charteris sneered.

  “You mean when they outsourced our little show.”

  Hopko didn’t reply.

  “Why did we hand it over so… so willingly, Val? With such alacrity?” said Charteris. Patterson was listening hard, now. Hopko thought for a moment, then exhaled.

  “Why? Why did we give our operation, our assets, to a private corporation to play with?” she said. “Because the operation wasn’t about us.”

 
Patterson waited, saw how hard it was for Hopko.

  “We all sensed this enormous opportunity, didn’t we?” Hopko went on. “To get deep inside China’s network. Well, we’re not the only ones interested in what’s in there. And governments are not the only players in this business any more.”

  She held her hands open.

  “The U.S. and the UK together spend a trillion dollars a year on defense and security. One trillion. Imagine being able to tell the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence they can’t buy anything made in China, ever. No chips, no routers, no wiring, no nothing, not even a transistor. Sorry, General, all that Made in China stuff is dodgy. It’s full of back doors and exploits and it’ll spy on you, and it’ll make your planes fall out of the sky and your ships go round in circles. And we’ve got evidence. Because we can see into China’s manufacturers and we know what they’re doing. Oh, but don’t worry, General, we’ll step in and make it for you: processors, fiber, whatever you need. Buy it from us instead. It’s called threat inflation. You may have heard of it.”

  She stopped, and rubbed her eyes.

  “And let’s face it, we don’t really know what we’re doing with cyber, do we? I mean we’ll make a decent fist of it—we just did: STONE CIRCLE was a success, wasn’t it? But the people who really know what they’re doing don’t work for us. Why would they? A house in a suburb, kids in state schools? Two weeks in Spain in the summer? Not for them. The people who know what they’re doing, the coders, the physicists, the materials people, they work in the corporations. But we need them. So we give them contracts, and we let them wander the corridors, and we rent their expertise. And they design things for us and sell them to us, and help us use them, the computers, software, networks, satellites, whatever. And, and, they learn all our secrets to boot. And gradually we come to depend on them, and then we become inseparable, and then we become indistinguishable. And voilà. The espionage industrial complex.”

  Hopko leaned back in her chair, folded her arms. Patterson watched her, then spoke.

  “But, Val.”

  “But, Trish.”

  “Who blew the operation? How did MSS get to GENIUS?” said Patterson.