by Adam Brookes
He picked up the two sheets of paper. For your guanxi.
He dialled Hoddinott’s number.
PART TWO
The Hook.
19
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
“Hoddinott.”
“It’s Philip. Mangan.”
“It’s very late.”
“I know, I’m sorry. It’s urgent.”
“Well?”
“Something you need to see.”
A pause.
“Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Is this for a story? You’re filing?”
“This is… something else.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m afraid I am, yes.”
Mangan heard a breath at the other end of the phone.
“I’ll come and pick you up at your flat.”
Mangan walked to the window. The white car was still there.
“No. Come to Mauritius Street, corner of Pushkin Street.”
Another pause. Hoddinott spoke slowly.
“Are we quite sure?”
“Sure enough.”
A sigh.
“All right.” Hoddinott hung up.
Mangan put the two pages back in their envelope, and then, for some reason, in a polyethelene bag. He put the bag in a money belt, which he strapped around his waist under his shirt. He put on a dark jacket and a floppy sun hat to cover his hair. Leaving the lights on, he slipped out of the front door and crawled along the landing, below the level of the concrete balustrade, the floor cool and filthy against his hands. Once in the stairwell, covered from view, he ran two steps at a time to the ground floor. It was midnight now; the streets still thronged with people, shadows, snatches of music, cigarette smoke on the air. He walked to the rear of the building, pushed open a peeling wooden door that squealed in objection, stepped out into a filthy courtyard; the rustle of rats amid the rubbish bins, a stench of rot. He walked along the exterior wall in the darkness, slipped into an alleyway and stood, breathing hard. Philip Mangan once again turns operational. Bravely crawls from apartment for no discernible reason. He could just see the rear end of the sedan, still static. He waited. No one came. He circled around the block, away from the car, and made for Mauritius Street. Philip Mangan, secret agent, prepares to meet British Intelligence, make fool of self. Jesus Christ.
20
Oxford
Kai sat on the grass in the quad under limpid sunlight. Grandpa’s memoir was becoming portentous, working up to something.
The day after the strafing we encountered some deserting soldiers, their uniforms in tatters. I wanted to berate them, but Literary Chen warned me to be quiet. He approached them carefully and offered them the last of our cornbread in exchange for two rifles and ammunition. They parted willingly with the weapons, old Hanyang bolt action rifles in poor condition, and a few rounds of ammunition. We walked on, heartened by the knowledge that at last we had the means to fight. The same day, by great fortune, we came upon a company of warlord troops by the side of the road. They said Chinese forces were making a stand at a place called Xinkou, and they were heading there, for this would be the place that Chinese forces held, and stopped the Japanese advance. We asked if we could join them and they said yes, and applauded our courage and fed us with rice and dried bean curd. We boarded trucks and went to war. We were seventeen.
Xinkou. The name lives in my memory. What happened to me there determined everything that I was to become.
When we arrived at Xinkou, we were taken to the company commander at his headquarters on a rocky hillside. He assigned us to making Molotov cocktails. He told us that the approaching Japanese had several dozen light tanks, and the Molotov cocktails would be used against them. We were taken to a cave where a huge pile of bottles and two drums of petrol awaited us. Hour after hour we funnelled the petrol into the bottles and sealed them with an oil-soaked rag. We had nothing to eat except one piece of steamed bread, which Literary Chen divided equally between us. When it became too dark, we rolled the petrol drums out on the hillside and carried on by moonlight. We could hear the grinding of the Japanese armor in the valley below us as the tanks moved up to their start line.
The next morning, the tanks advanced, about eighteen of them, and we watched from the hillside as Chinese infantry rushed forward and hurled our Molotov cocktails. Several of the tanks caught fire and we could see the Japanese devils bailing out, and pillars of thick smoke rising to the sky. We were inflamed with pride and patriotism. We took our rifles and five rounds of ammunition each, and ran to the trenches to wait for the Japanese infantry.
Kai stopped reading, a memory billowing upward, breaking the surface.
His grandfather and his father, at a table strewn with the remains of a meal, dirty crockery, chopsticks, chicken bones, the air thick with cigarette smoke. They are looking at photographs, tiny black and whites. They are intent on the pictures, which have something to do with the war. Kai, a boy, walks around the table to them, asks to see the photographs. His grandfather waves him away and says, “You wouldn’t understand.” And in that instant a child’s realization takes hold that these two men have in common lived experience of great profundity. They have seen war and revolution. They have seen their country transform itself from bleak and bitter privation to the glossy prosperity of today. They have in common a shared knowledge that he, with his expensive education, his spoiled ways, will never possess.
He thought for a moment about these distant men, then read on.
We lasted a week. Nearly all of the officers were dead. Our supply lines had been bombed and we were out of food and water. Our ammunition was all but exhausted. Many Chinese soldiers had left their positions. Literary Chen and I were sleepless and starving. From our trenches we had watched the Chinese forces counterattack, and seen the battle ebb and flow. The closest we got to fighting was firing at Japanese patrols as they came and probed for weaknesses in our sector. Our company commander ordered us to make our way to the rear. I asked him why we should leave. He said, with tears in his eyes, that we were too young to die, and he was ordering us to fall back.
We left at night and wandered sadly southwest toward the provincial capital. We had nothing to eat. The roads were infested with deserters and stragglers and danger was everywhere. After two days, close to exhaustion, I went to forage for food in a deserted farm cottage while Literary Chen watched the road in the twilight. I pushed open the door and knew immediately I had made a mistake. The air was thick with the smell of men sleeping, and out of the darkness a huge hand took me by the lapel and forced me to my knees.
I had stumbled into a patrol of the Communist Eighth Route Army. These were tough, self-sufficient men who spoke the rough, earthy Chinese of the villages. They questioned me and took my rifle. Then they fed me millet soup. When I told them that I had a comrade, Literary Chen, out on the road, two of them went to look for him, but he had gone, fearing, I assumed, that I had been taken by deserters or bandits. I did not see him for many years.
The Communist soldiers took me back to their base area, and, on learning I was literate, set me to work reading reports and newspapers out loud to them. They gave me a new uniform, looked after me well and talked to me about the future…
Pages of suffocating pap about his grandfather’s conversion to communism, told in treacly anecdotes of kind-hearted, gravel-voiced cadres correcting his mistakes and enlightening him as to the realities of landlordism. Grandpa was reborn, and in a sort of salvation, sent back to his home province, Shaanxi. He ended up in Yan’an, the redoubt of the Communist movement, Mao’s headquarters. There, for the duration of the war, he was assigned to the communications department. He watched as the Party’s technicians, advised by an affable, absent-minded Englishman, built China’s first international broadcast service. They strung copper wire between two mountain tops for an antenna, and sent out news bulletins in Morse, with no idea if anyone was listening. Crucially, Grandpa tinkere
d with radios and learned how to lay telephone cable, how to splice it when it was cut.
Kai dropped the book on the grass and dozed.
21
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Hoddinott came in a white SUV, bouncing in and out of the potholes beneath the dim streetlights. The car slowed. Mangan stepped from a doorway, jogged across cracked, uneven pavement, dodging passersby. Hoddinott saw him and stopped. He climbed in. Music was playing—thick, heavy, classical music, Mozart or something, music for all frequencies. Joanna was in the back wearing a fleece, stony-faced.
“Phone,” said Hoddinott. Mangan switched off his mobile, took the battery out, stowed it in the glove compartment.
They drove in silence for a few minutes, Hoddinott checking the mirrors, Joanna turning in her seat, craning her neck. They took the ring road, picked up some speed.
“All right. What was at the flat?” said Hoddinott. He wore a T-shirt, looked dishevelled, as if he’d been in bed.
“Look, I’m not sure, but I think I was being watched.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t go and fucking ask them.”
Hoddinott shook his head.
“It was a car,” said Mangan. “I had a weird encounter with a Chinese guy, and then this car turns up and sits outside my block.”
“Is that it? Is that why we’re here?”
“No. You need to look at these.” Mangan unzipped the money belt, took out the plastic bag, the two sheets of paper.
“Give them to Joanna,” said Hoddinott.
Mangan turned around and handed them to her. She took them, switched on the overhead light.
“What is this?” she said. “I don’t bloody read Chinese.”
“I think it’s an agent report,” said Mangan.
“Oh, an agent report,” said Hoddinott. He raised his voice. “It’s an agent report, Joanna.”
“Well, could you possibly enlighten us as to its contents, Philip?” she said.
He swallowed.
“It says Mat Naim is in Somalia and it gives his exact location. A grid reference.”
Silence.
“Do you know who Mat Naim is?” said Mangan.
“Yes! Yes, I know who Mat fucking Naim is!” Hoddinott shouted. “What do you mean he’s in Somalia?”
Mangan waited a beat. He turned in his seat, spoke to Joanna.
“Your husband’s a bit of a drama queen, isn’t he?”
Joanna leaned forward, and there was a set to her face, a look, that reminded him of someone: another handler, in a different place, at a different time. A woman who’d held herself like a soldier, who’d sent him into China. She’d had the same obdurate, evaluative look, the look that searched for threat.
“Now listen, Philip,” Joanna said. “Just what the hell is going on here? Is this real? Where did you get it? And just so we know, are we playing out some little fantasy here, a bit of attention seeking? Missing us, are you? Want to get back in the game?”
“I’ll tell you…”
“Did we, in fact, just make this whole fucking thing up? What do you think you’re doing, actually?”
“Christ, if I knew what I was doing I wouldn’t be here talking to you two hysterics.”
Hoddinott thumped the steering wheel.
“Tell us where you got this. Now.”
Mangan took a deep breath, slowed his speech down.
“Over the last few weeks, I’ve encountered this Chinese man a number of times. He’s been watching me, somehow. He’s taken photographs and emailed them to me. He’s wanted me to know that I’m being watched.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this?” Hoddinott snapped. “Anything out of the ordinary, I said.”
“I was going to, but there was a bloody great bomb blast, if you remember, which led to a moment of preoccupation.”
Hoddinott pursed his lips, squinted into the oncoming headlights, shadow sliding across his face.
“Go on.”
“Earlier this evening, he turns up again in the bar at the Jupiter Hotel and gives me this. Tells me to report it, but through the right channels. He says it’s for my guanxi, my connections.”
“What does that mean?” said Joanna. “Why did he say that?”
“It means he knows. He knows that I’m linked… to you.”
“How?”
“He knows.”
“And did he by any chance offer words of explanation as to why he was peddling this material to you?”
“He said, ‘we have something to contribute.’ Those were his words.”
“So you are suggesting that a Chinese operative has chosen you, you, as a channel to contact us, because of your… history?”
“It would be an explanation.”
“I mean rather than going through the proper channels, say, like intelligence agencies usually do when they have crucial, time-sensitive, actionable intelligence to share,” she said.
“I have no idea why he is doing what he’s doing.”
“You haven’t been tarting yourself about, have you, Philip? Showing a bit of leg?”
“I’m a journalist, not a recluse.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Hoddinott.
“I want to speak to Trish,” said Mangan.
“And who might she be, Philip?”
Mangan looked from the car window, saw the darkened city, its millions of buried lives.
“She was my case officer. Before.”
22
The date. A reference number.
FM CX ADDIS ABABA
TO LONDON
TO TCI/29611
TO TCI/64335
TO P/C/62815
TO P/A/39751
FILE REF C/WFE C/A
FILE REF R/84459
FILE REF SB/38972
LEDGER UK S E C R E T
PRIORITY
/REPORT
1/ ADD 2 received a mobile phone call from Philip MANGAN P77395. MANGAN requested an immediate meeting.
2/ ADD 2 and ADD 3 met MANGAN immediately by car. MANGAN said he had possession of documents from an unidentified Chinese source who had approached him earlier in the bar of the Jupiter Hotel. The documents are written in Chinese. MANGAN advises that the documents purport to be an agent report originating from, and directed to, persons/agencies unknown. MANGAN maintains the documents describe MAT NAIM as being recently in southern Somalia and include details of his precise location. Station cannot confirm that this is what the documents say.
3/ Scanned copies of documents are attached.
DOCUMENT A
Printout of scanned document written in Chinese, with date.
DOCUMENT B
Printed list of telephone numbers.
4/ Station advises immediate translation and assessment of DOCUMENT A, traces on numbers contained in DOCUMENT B.
/END
Patterson was eating an egg banjo hurriedly in the staff cafeteria when Hopko leaned over her shoulder.
“It’s time,” was all she said.
Patterson wiped ketchup from her mouth.
“When you’re ready,” said Hopko.
Patterson stood, still chewing, and followed Hopko from the canteen. Hopko walked quickly, her gait assured, polished, that of a politician, or an executive. In her wake, threads of some expensive perfume Patterson did not recognize.
“So can I know what this is about?” said Patterson, catching up.
“Very soon,” said Hopko.
“Am I in trouble again?”
“Not exactly,” said Hopko. She paused, half-smiled. “It seems your man has done it again.”
“What? What man?”
Unexpectedly, Hopko grabbed her upper arm, and Patterson for an instant found herself having to suppress the urge to parry and strike. Hopko steered her into a ladies’ cloakroom, checked quickly to ensure they were alone, and turned to face her. Hopko spoke quietly.
“Philip Mangan.”
Patterson felt a flash of anticipation. She hid it.
“What’s he done?”
“They are going to grill you, Trish. It’s a very tricky situation and they need to decide, fast, what the hell to do. So stay on point, yes? I’ll be with you.”
Patterson nodded. They left the cloakroom and took the lift to the fourth floor in silence. Hopko walked with her into a conference room. The room had the thick air of an all-night session, the table littered with discarded coffee cups, sheaves of paper, computer cables. Two gray-faced men sat jacketless and silent. Patterson recognized them. Weekes, Controller/Counter-terrorism, and Vezza, one of the Targeting Officers in the Africa Controllerate who had lectured on her New Entry Course, young, dark-haired, a wryness to him, a quickness of eye. Vezza smiled, nodded to her. Weekes spoke.
“Trish. Yup. Thanks for coming, especially on a Saturday. We need to talk to you briefly about Philip Mangan. Please sit.”
She sat. Hopko had taken a place at the table.
“You handled Mangan last year, correct? Tell us a bit about him.”
“Some context would be helpful,” said Patterson.
Weekes looked up at her.
“Just talk to us, please. Tell us what he’s like.”
“Well, he’s quietly spoken, retiring, sometimes. Though he can get angry, if he summons the energy. He’s lanky, sort of rangy, tall. He has red hair, which makes him noticeable. He’s disorganized, but he’s not unreliable. He’s very competent in important ways.”
“How? Be specific, please.”
“He knows how to elicit information. He asks questions like a reporter, because he is one. He finds things out very quickly. There were moments during the operation when he really shone. His first operational contact with the asset was remarkable.”
“Did you have a relationship with him?”
“I was his handler, so, yes, I had a relationship.”
“Answer the question.”
“I…”
“What he means is,” said Hopko, her voice tight, “did you screw him?”