by Adam Brookes
So when she finally, belatedly made the association, she wanted to kick herself, or strike something. It was late that same evening and she was at home. Damian from downstairs was sprawled on the couch. He had come thundering up the stairs, thumped on the door.
“I need to watch your TV,” he said. “I was watching on my computer but the connection’s gone down.” He made an imploring gesture, fingers locked together, a mock agonized face.
She sighed, let him in and he bounded to the sofa, picked up the remote. It was some European qualifier game. She went to the kitchen and took two lasagnas in plastic containers from the freezer and put them in the microwave.
“Why is your flat always so flipping tidy?” he shouted from the living room. She went back through, carrying two glasses, a bottle of red.
“I said you could watch, not critique,” she said. “And take your feet off the coffee table, please.”
He gave her a cheesy grin, patted the sofa next to him. She sat down, tried to concentrate on the game.
“You should get a new TV,” he said.
“You should get a new computer.”
“Got too much stuff on it to get rid of it.”
And the memory burst through to the surface. She sat forward. The Fan family is under attack from persons unknown somewhere deep in Chinese intelligence. The Fan boy’s laptop is stolen.
There are no coincidences in intelligence.
She stood up.
“What is it?” said Damian.
What the hell did that mean? she thought. How could I have forgotten that?
“Have I done something wrong?” said Damian.
Her mind was racing. The microwave was pinging.
“What? No… I…”
He was looking at her strangely.
“Trish, you look like you’re about to kill someone.”
She ignored him, went to pick up her secure handheld. She just heard him walk out quietly and close the front door behind him.
With a speed and bureaucratic deftness that only Valentina Hopko could muster, an operation was brought into being. Vezza, in Africa Controllerate, and the hard men of Global Issues/Counterterrorism could only marvel at how she drew together the disparate strands—the approaches in Hong Kong and Addis Ababa, the extraordinary Mat Naim take, the offer of service from Rocky Shi, the corruption of the Fan family—and wove them into a narrative pregnant with possibility.
There’s a new source, nestled somewhere deep inside China’s blackest of black boxes.
And he’s asking for us.
The contents of the memory stick were scrubbed and sent to the Assessments Staff, and a brief report began threading its way through Whitehall to a very few, very carefully chosen desks. We have found out the Fan family secrets, the report said. We have been handed a stiletto. What else might we find?
A small team of analysts was set to work searching, more in hope than in anticipation, for any trace of Rocky Shi. Cheltenham began mining stored flight data, searching metadata for calls placed between Harer and Beijing, Harer and the Chinese embassies in Addis, Djibouti, Nairobi, on certain dates. They fired up a useful little program that tracked email traffic into and out of hotel reservation sites in search of bookings made in Ethiopia by Chinese government agencies. They came up empty.
Patterson, astonished, found herself rapidly assembling a cover that would hold in Ethiopia. Ethiopia! Maria Todd takes a holiday, perhaps, a break from her onerous accounting duties in London and Hong Kong. A vacation to the churches at Lalibela, or among the colorful tribespeople of the south. Why not? A backpack, a guidebook.
No.
“Tourist” is a surprisingly hard cover to live, with its dawdling and gawping and counting the pennies. Patterson, it was decided, would be a small businesswoman, an aspiring importer of handicrafts and fabrics, venturing to Ethiopia for the first time, harboring a particular interest in the icons of Ethiopian Christianity, whose full-lipped madonnas, wide-eyed Christ children and dragon-slaying saints, rendered on goatskin in shimmering gold and green and magenta, would find approval among the fickle tastemakers of London.
“Because,” said Hopko, “the only way we’ll get to him is on the ground.”
The sticking point was Mangan.
The notion of putting him back in play was met with splutters of disbelief from Security Branch. Philip Mangan? Formerly of Beijing? Veteran of an initially thrilling, later terrifying, and ultimately bloody venture in China that scared the living shit out of us? That Mangan?
But as Hopko pointed out, entirely reasonably in Patterson’s mind, Mangan was already in play, wasn’t he? Because the Service had no earthly means of getting to Rocky Shi, or whatever this man’s true name might be, other than via Mangan. Her logic was accepted grudgingly and on condition that, as soon as feasible, a case officer—either visiting or from Addis station—should assume the handling of the asset, if asset there proved to be. Hopko blithely accepted the condition, with absolutely no intention, Patterson could see, of adhering to it.
But what puzzled Patterson was the speed and voraciousness of Hopko’s operational approach, the degree she seemed to be invested in Rocky Shi as a source when so little was known about him.
“We don’t even know his full name,” she said quietly, as they sat in Hopko’s sanctum looking at maps of Addis Ababa. “What’s the hurry?”
Hopko smiled her venal half-smile, didn’t respond, waited, as if she knew Patterson had more to say.
“Val, there’s something else. The Fan boy, the one at Oxford. There was a ping on the Police National Computer. He had his laptop stolen.”
“Lorks. When?” said Hopko.
“Recently. I’ll get you the exact date. There was a search of his room. The police thought it was done professionally.”
Hopko sat forward, took off her glasses.
“Do we know what was on it?”
“No. There was nothing in the police report. I just thought…” Patterson’s voice trailed off.
Hopko was considering.
“I don’t like coincidences, Trish.” She took a sharp intake of breath, put her glasses back on. “But I do like Ethiopian food. Do you? My old dad loved it, bless him. He had an Ethiopian housekeeper when he worked on the wells in the Emirates, and she cooked for him. He couldn’t get enough of it.” She reached across her desk and opened a drawer, brought out a photograph which she held up for Patterson to look at. A beach, boats, or dhows, and in the foreground, a broad-shouldered man in a blue shirt, thick, tanned forearms, an expensive watch, eyes squinting against the sun. In him, Patterson saw the source of Hopko’s square figure, her stocky, strong shoulders, her air of implacability.
“There he is,” said Hopko. “The Ukrainian engineer, sitting in Sharjah, in a hundred and ten degrees, mopping up all those fiery Ethiopian stews.” She looked at the photograph for a minute. “My Lebanese mother was less enthusiastic. Didn’t like being cooked for…”
She paused, looked up.
“By a black woman,” said Patterson.
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Hopko, offhandedly. “Anyway, there’s a little place off Horseferry Road. Let’s go. Consider it training.”
Hopko did not mention the laptop again, and Patterson took away the odd impression that she did not want to talk about it.
The little place off Horseferry Road was called the Queen of Sheba. It sat sandwiched between a betting shop and an estate agent. Patterson was early and sat at a round wicker table facing the door. The lights were dim, and the dining room was silent and smelled of damp carpet. She contemplated ordering a beer, but thought better of it on this, her last evening before traveling.
An evening to be endured. Hopko arrived at precisely the appointed time and bustled over to her, sat, smoothed her hair, bracelets jangling. She wore perfume, Patterson noticed, and more than a touch of makeup. For dinner at the Queen of Sheba? Without a greeting, Hopko picked up the menu.
“Now then,” she said, “shall I
order for both of us?”
Obviously, thought Patterson.
“Do you like lamb? It’ll come in a delicious sort of aromatic sauce.”
“Lamb is fine.”
Hopko looked up at Patterson, who felt herself tensing.
“Lamb it is, then,” said Hopko, holding her gaze. “And how about a doro wat, lovely chicken hot pot with eggs in it.”
“Sounds delicious,” said Patterson.
Hopko flipped the menu, looked at the wine list.
“Feeling a little nervy, Trish?” she said.
“No.”
“It’s allowed. New case, new place.”
“I’m fine, thanks, Val.” I have been briefed ad nauseam. What are we doing here?
Hopko gestured for a waitress, and ordered briskly, the dishes, a bottle of wine.
“I wanted to talk a bit of history.”
Patterson sighed inwardly.
“What sort of history?”
“The history of the Fan family. Well, more of a dynasty, really, isn’t it?”
Patterson gave up and reached for the wine bottle.
“There’s a memoir,” said Hopko. “Written by the old man, the patriarch.”
Hopko had a gift for narrative, Patterson thought. She had the memory, the facility for drawing out only the telling fact. Patterson listened as the little boy scratched his characters on a slate in the yellow dust of Shaanxi, as he watched the refugees scavenge for scraps of food while the fighters wheeled and banked, as he lay waiting for the Japanese bayonets to come glinting up the hillside. As he knelt, the leather belt on his wrists, the screams in his ears, naming names.
33
The restaurant was empty but for one other table, a silent, elegant Ethiopian family. Hopko tore off a piece of injera, worked it neatly into the stew, folding it around the meat, and popped it into her mouth. Patterson’s fingers were greasy and her throat burned.
“And what happened to Literary Chen?” she asked.
“The memoir doesn’t dwell on it, which is not a surprise. But other accounts have it that he was hounded. Sent to one of the cadre schools. They called them schools—they were punishment camps, really. And he died there, apparently.”
Patterson didn’t know how to respond, worked stolidly at the lamb.
“But old man Fan survived the whole thing. He was rehabilitated. He even got his old job back. By the late seventies he’s a vice minister, no less, dreaming of fax machines and satellites. The kids have been to university and are doing very nicely. Son number one, Fan Rong, is working his way up the Party Organization Department. He’ll end up royalty, on the Politburo. Son number two, Fan Ping, is getting a master’s in electrical engineering. He’ll work in a military research institute on radar. And then in the eighties he’ll start up a little company importing switching and routing equipment, taking it apart, figuring out how it works, making a cheaper Chinese version. The company does rather well. Today we know it as China National Century, CNaC. The world’s largest telecoms manufacturer, sidelines in satellites, radar, missile components, avionics, processors. He’s the one with the son at Oxford. See where this is going, do we, Trish?”
Patterson just nodded.
“The daughter is Charlotte Fan. Goes by her English name. She’s based in Hong Kong and London and dabbles in business.”
Hopko was looking at her wineglass.
“So the Fan children have every angle covered, you see. Fan Rong, from his perch in the higher reaches of the Party, manages the politics, patronage networks, protection. Fan Ping generates the colossal wealth through CNaC. Charlotte Fan keeps one foot conveniently out of the country, manages the properties and the offshore accounts. But then… then she goes and buys oil wells she shouldn’t from crooked officials.”
“A thoroughly modern Chinese story,” said Patterson.
“Yes,” said Hopko. She leaned forward, put her fork down, tapped the wicker table with her index finger. “Yes, it is, as long as you remember where they’ve come from. The poverty, the war, the struggle sessions. The Fans didn’t just pass their exams and learn nice table manners like we did, Trish. They fought, they bled, they despaired. And then they survived. And they carry it all with them, the stories, the memories, the sins, all forged into identity and obligation and loyalty. And Charlotte has put the entire edifice, everything they’ve bled for, at risk.”
Patterson understood now.
“And someone’s using it, gunning for them,” she said.
“I think we’ve found a fault line, a place where two plates meet.” Hopko made a joining, eliding gesture, bringing her hands together. “And there’s enormous energy and tension stored up there, just waiting for release.”
They sat in silence for a minute or two. Hopko had barely eaten. She laid twenty-pound notes on the table.
“Mangan must do more than just bring us offerings from these people,” she said. “He must find out who, and why. Why us? What are we to them? What do they want of us?”
“I know.”
“Be careful, Trish,” said Hopko. And then she stood and swept from the restaurant, en route to some distant and obscure obligation, Patterson assumed, in a secret Whitehall corridor, or a clubroom paneled in oak, or a Kensington drawing room.
Patterson took the Tube, the air in the station close and thick and scorched. She waited on the platform, feeling the hot wind from the tunnel against her face.
When she emerged at Archway, the evening was warm, past nine and still light. She walked home through the traffic, past the small Victorian terraced houses, the silent dog walkers.
Her flat was dim, the blinds drawn. She took her clothes off and walked naked to the bathroom. She turned the shower up hot, let the water rush against her scalp, let it soothe her. The adrenaline was starting to flow, nerves kicking in. She tried to think of nothing.
She dried herself and put on a cotton dressing gown. She unpacked her case, repacked it, took her travel documents from the safe in the wardrobe. She took the phone, sat cross-legged on the sofa and dialed.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mum, it’s me.”
“Oh, it’s you. Hello, my darling.”
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No, no, my darling. I’m just sitting up in bed.”
Patterson heard the lingering fleck of Caribbean to her speech, the television in the background.
“How are you? How’s Dad?” she said.
“Oh, we’re fine. Dad is, well, you know. His hip is bad.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“What? When?”
“When you went to see him.”
“Oh. Well, ask Maggie. She knows about it.” Maggie, her sister, who had a hair salon in Nottingham.
“All right. I’ll ask her. Mum, I’m just calling because I’m going away again for a bit.”
“Again? Where this time?”
“Oh, nowhere very interesting. Just around and about.”
“When will you be back?”
“A week or two.”
“Can you call this time?”
“It’s a bit hard, Mum. Like usual. I’ll let you know as soon as I’m back.”
“They should let you call. Why won’t they let you?”
She closed her eyes, leaned her head back on the sofa.
“It’s just a bit hard from some of these places. But don’t worry. I’ll be back in no time.”
“You’re so far away all the time.”
“I’ll come up and see you in a few weeks. Promise.”
“Dad would like that.”
“It’ll be fun.”
A pause. She could hear her mother’s breathing on the line, the laugh track from the television.
“It’s getting dark now,” said her mother. “Getting dark outside.”
“It’s late. You get to sleep. Give Dad a hug from me.”
“He’s downstairs. Sitting there.”
“All right. Lots of love now.”
<
br /> “You sound all wound up. Wound tight as a fiddle.”
“I’m fine. I just have a lot to do. Lots of love, Mum.”
“You better get on, then. Be careful, my darling, in those places. Call when you get back.”
“I will.”
She replaced the receiver, its plastic clack obtrusive in the silence. Patterson sat still, rubbed her thighs, suddenly chilled.
She thought of the last time she’d seen Mangan, at Changi airport in Singapore after the debrief, more than a year before, his quiet, the anger damped down behind those clear eyes. They had stood on the pavement at drop-off. China makes exiles of us, he’d said, and touched her on the arm. Then he’d turned and walked toward the terminal, his rumpled jacket and red hair fading into the crowd.
Her agent.
34
Oxford
Kai sat at his desk watching motes of dust in sunlight on their tiny voyages.
You will have no further contact with the Chen girl.
He reached down and opened a drawer. In it, his brushes, ink, some rice paper. He unrolled the rice paper on the desk, weighted it down, ground some ink. He hadn’t touched the brushes in months and now he picked them up gingerly, feeling them in his hand.
His first few attempts were clumsy, the characters weak and tentative. But the fifth sheet was better, the strokes taut and moving.
In the night, a west wind ravaged the leaves.
Alone, I climbed the tower, stared down a road that crossed the edge of the sky.
I wanted to write to you something extravagant, but I have no paper.
The mountains are endless and the rivers vast. How do I even know where you are?
The poet was Yan Shu, writing in the eleventh century. A quiet prodigy, Yan Shu, studious, liked a drink, wandered in his garden. Kai wondered if he should affix his seal, but thought of the bloodred ink on the rice paper. Someone would see it, know who’d written it.
When the calligraphy had dried, he folded it carefully and left it in her pigeonhole.