Spy Games

by Adam Brookes

  He sat alone in the cafeteria eating chicken curry with rice. Afterward, he went to the grimy student bar in the basement and drank two beers, the music thumping in his ears. What would happen, he thought, if I just threw everything off? Gave it all up. If I went home, worked in a store, or a gallery? If I rented a room, learned to make furniture and cook with ma peppercorns and cumin and star anise, great bowls of noodles slathered with chilli, a layer of oil keeping the heat in. I’d cook for my friends, if I were to have some of those, at some point.

  What if I learned to paint? What would happen? What would my father say, the annihilating tone bleeding through his voice? What part of my anatomy would Uncle Checkbook take hold of?

  Kai walked up the creaking staircase and opened the door to his room. A piece of lined paper lay on the floor, folded in two. He picked it up. The strokes were written hurriedly, in blue ballpoint pen.

  The stirrings in your heart, do not seek their bloom. An inch of desire is an inch of ash.

  Li Shangyin, the poet. Dark, impossible, impassioned Li Shangyin, signaling, in her rejection, a whole world of complexity—and possibility.

  35

  Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

  Addis Ababa’s airport, Bole, had a gimcrack air, half-finished bits of renovation, a powdery dust on the floor. Confused travelers stood looking around themselves for signs or aid. The tall British woman waiting in the queue for a visa, the importer of art and curios—Juliet Dobson, the name on the passport—was already late, a technical fault associated with the plane’s doors having delayed departure for a full two hours, while engineers first fussed and then stood silently awaiting a part.

  Patterson shifted from foot to foot as the queue inched forward to a window where a harassed woman took her seventeen euros and, without a word or a look, stamped her passport with a tourist visa, the well-rehearsed cover story proving utterly unnecessary.

  When they take a sniff of you, Hopko always warned, it will be in the hotel.

  She emerged into morning sunlight, her mouth sour, eyes dry and grainy. She felt the altitude immediately. It lent the air, the light, a crispness. She took an airport taxi to the Jupiter Hotel at a vastly inflated price. The driver asked her polite questions about her visit. She gave vague answers and took in the city, its wide, crumbling avenues redolent of plans discarded, of grand schemes forgotten, the shacks drifting into every available space. At the Jupiter, smiling staff checked her in. She went to her room, waited five minutes, then went back down to reception and requested the room be changed. Something quieter, perhaps. Or on a higher floor. The staff conferred in murmurs, complied.

  Never take the first room they offer you.

  She undressed, chained the door, laid snares around her secure handheld—a hair, a fragment of tissue paper—and slept.

  For the meetings, Hoddinott, through a front company, had sublet a flat in a new block off Tunisia Street, one peopled by a number of young expats whose coming and going at strange hours was to be expected. A countermeasures officer was brought in from Nairobi station to sweep it. The flat was pronounced clean. It had tiled floors and neon overhead lighting and was bleakly furnished with a black sofa covered in its plastic wrapping, a dining table of smoked glass and a vast television.

  As to the surveillance Mangan claimed to have seen, well, was it Rocky Shi’s own people taking a look at Mangan? Or NISS issuing a routine reminder to a foreign reporter to take care? Its intermittent nature and obvious clumsiness ruled out the worst option—that it was a Chinese State Security team monitoring Mangan. Perhaps it was nothing at all. If it was there, Patterson would see it. All in good time.

  She spent the late afternoon living her cover, visiting the teeming Merkato in a light rain, picking her way through the handicrafts stalls, buying samples, asking what she hoped were pertinent questions of the stallholders. What saint is this? Where does one source these paintings, these icons? What kind of paint is used? The answers she received confirmed that every icon was painted with only the most natural of pigments, out of ecstasies of devotion in island monasteries that rose from sparkling lakes, pure and unsullied expressions of an ancient, wise and forgiving religiosity, and all available for export. Patterson twisted and turned, boarded a taxi, got out too soon, hailed another one, paid off the drivers with filthy fifty-birr notes.

  Now she stood slightly breathless, damp, in the living room of the safe flat, marveling at its inhospitable nature. She tried to collect herself, took off her waterproof jacket. She wore jeans, hiking boots, a sensible shirt which had been ironed a little too well, she realized. When she sat on the sofa the plastic wrapping crackled. They would sit at the table, she decided.

  A quiet knock.

  She went to the door, looked through the peephole.

  He looked straight back at her, his features distended by the fish-eye lens. She opened the door and he entered silently and she closed the door, and he stood there. He was thinner, the pale skin she remembered more tanned now, the hair a little longer, unruly. He retained his air of creased indifference to his surroundings, his level look.

  And now, she saw, he was smiling a crooked half-smile.

  “Hello Trish Whatever-your-name-is,” he said.

  “Hello, Philip.”

  Mangan half-raised his arms, as if for a hug. She turned away and walked to the dining table, motioning to him to sit. He let his arms fall and joined her, scraping his chair on the tile as he sat.

  “First things first,” she said.

  “Oh, always,” he replied.

  “Do you think you are under surveillance now?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “When was the last time you believe you saw surveillance?”

  “Three days ago. The car, outside my flat.”

  “If for any reason we are interrupted, you leave first. You leave by the stairwell and you take the rear exit from the building at the base of the stairs. Walk across the courtyard, hop the wall and you are in a park, with multiple paths and exits. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  “Are you clear on this?” She was speaking too loudly, she realized, adrenaline flooding through her as she thought of a small damp man in a raincoat tumbling under train wheels.

  Mangan spoke calmly.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m clear. Stairwell, exit, park. Got it.” He smiled.

  “Is there anything you need to tell me straightaway? Or anything you need from me?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right, let’s get started.” She took her secure handheld, opened the application that would record and encrypt their conversation.

  “Before you turn that on,” he said, “how have you been?”

  You must run him, Trish, Hopko had said. Do not allow him to frame your relationship in terms of the past.

  “Not bad,” she said. “You?”

  He looked at her, expecting more, waiting. She remembered now, this taut stillness in him, this ability to wait and listen, taking you in, seeing you.

  “Philip, we are not here to chew over old times.”

  “That’s not what I was asking. I was wondering if you were okay. But, fine. Proceed.” He gestured to the handheld. She looked down, turned it on, started recording.

  They started on Rocky Shi. His appearance, manner, his tone of speech. His bearing, his accent. Any clue as to his identity, his background, his access, his reliability. Anything at all. Be a reporter. Give us the lot.

  Mangan talked, sketching the man out in words as he might write it.

  “He comes over as confident, a professional. He looks like a hard man gone a bit soft on the surface, a bit thick around the middle. He speaks in a knowing tone, as if he’s sharing a joke with me. He aspires to… to goodness, I think. Or so he says. He’s big on rectitude, as an end, if not as a means. He’s so very keen to be my friend, to build a sort of shared recognition of the world. He’s ingratiating. But then he shares very little. He turns calculating.”


  Mangan stopped and thought.

  “And beneath it all is a current of… something.” He described the jigging of the leg, the bitten nails, the scar. The sense of his being directed in something, some endeavor.

  “Anxiety?” she said. “Is he anxious?”

  Mangan shrugged.

  “You should have heard what he said about you.”

  “What’s that mean?” Patterson asked, frowning. It came out too sharp, she realized. Mangan was laughing silently.

  “He said you were a very aggressive woman. Formidable, apparently. You did something to someone in Hong Kong that impressed him. I have no idea what he meant. But he’s marked you.”

  Jesus Christ.

  “And motive, Philip? Anything on motive? Any idea why this man seems so keen to dump secrets on us ? No expression of anger? Or grudge?”

  “The opposite. He seems deeply patriotic. Proud of China.”

  Then, suddenly, noise from the street: a shout, a car accelerating away. They both stopped and looked toward the window. Patterson went over, pulled the blind back an inch, watched for a moment.

  “And tell me again, the financial motive?” she said, walking back to her chair.

  “That was all he said. Financial compensation, for him and his ‘associates.’ Didn’t say it like he meant it. Didn’t tell me why he needed it.”

  She pressed him on the associates. Who does he mean? How many did Mangan know of? The Clown, who else? The gaunt Ethiopian in the alleyway in Harer. Any more?

  “No idea. But I assume so.”

  “What is this, Philip, do you think? What are we buying here, if we buy? Is this a network? A cabal?”

  He didn’t answer straightaway.

  “You want facts or hunch?” he said.

  “Facts.”

  “Well, I don’t have any.”

  “All right, hunch.”

  “I don’t think Rocky is in charge. I think he’s following orders,” said Mangan.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure I could say. He seems to be weighing what he says and does against a scheme or an agenda. Or something.”

  This is a plan, Trish.

  “And,” Mangan went on, “what access would one man have that could get him material like that, so timely, so accurate?”

  She looked at Mangan. He’s engaged, she thought. He’s already committed himself psychologically.

  Now.

  “And you, Philip, why are you here?”

  He stopped, wrong-footed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you want back in, Philip?”

  He didn’t answer. He’s reaching for a response, she thought. She broke the silence, pushed her advantage.

  “Because, you see, there’s a bit of trepidation, frankly, about using you again.”

  She paused, let it sink in.

  “And there’s a bit of bafflement about why you would want to be used. Given everything that happened.”

  “Oh, are we allowed to talk about that now?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Rocky Shi chose me, I didn’t choose him.”

  “Don’t be cute, Philip. You bloody well leaped at the chance.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he said softly.

  “Yes, you did. I’ll ask you again. Why are you here?”

  He stood up and walked the length of the room to where the television hung on the wall.

  “I was rebuilding my life,” he said. “Or trying to. I really was. After China.”

  “And?” she said.

  He raised a hand, let it fall.

  “I’ve seen now,” he said. “I’ve seen you, what you do. I can’t un-see you. I have this knowledge. I can’t see the world without thinking of you, of everything that’s… that’s below the surface.”

  He raised a hand, as if reaching for something.

  “I need it,” he said. “I need to be in it.”

  They talked for two hours. She felt the tension in her neck and shoulders grow, a stress headache coming on. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, listened.

  “Get a name, a photograph, a mobile phone number. Anything. A license plate, an email address, a credit card receipt. Anything that gives us traction on him,” she said. Then they’ll work outward, she thought. They’ll plant him in the databases, watch his network take shape, grow, like feathers of crystal in a solution.

  “You’ll use this,” she said, pushing a small black plastic flight case across the table to him.

  Exhausted, talked out, she went to the fridge. Hoddinott had left roast beef sandwiches in foil and St. George’s beer. She took two of the bottles, looked in the drawers for an opener, couldn’t find one. She took a spoon, rested it against her knuckle and popped the caps off neatly. He motioned applause.

  “Tradecraft,” she said, handing him a bottle.

  “Are we still recording?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He sighed, looked at the ceiling.

  “Can you tell me anything at all about… you know. China. Everything.”

  “Not much,” said Patterson.

  “Was there ever any news of her?”

  “No,” said Patterson.

  He gave a tight nod.

  Look at him, playing the good soldier, she thought.

  “Get used to it, Philip. Our stories don’t end. They just sort of hang there, unresolved.”

  She sat.

  “When you see him,” she said, “remember to turn the thing on, won’t you?”

  “You are even harder than I remember,” he said.

  36

  Sunday afternoon. Mangan took the jeep, headed southeast out of Addis on a smooth, Chinese-built highway in light traffic, slowing for the herds of goats, donkeys standing in the road, rigid, unmoving even as the boys whipped them. The rainy season was coming on, the dun hills laced with green.

  Another meeting, the Clown had said, leaning into him, whispering in his ear as he crossed Mauritius Street. We want you to see something.

  Twelve miles out of Addis, Mangan pulled over, watched his mirrors. He released his hold on the wheel, realized his palms were damp. The traffic flashed past, a brown sedan, two motorcycles, a red Mitsubishi four-wheel drive, an overladen bus listing to one side, the white Isuzu trucks ploughing down the center of the highway at speed. He pulled out and executed a fast U-turn, headed back toward Addis for two miles, then stopped again at the roadside, watched. Nothing he could see. He turned around and drove on towards Debre Zeit.

  Look for the church, the market set on the hillside. Mangan pulled in behind a gleaming white Toyota SUV, left the engine running. After a moment, a figure climbed out of the Toyota, walked toward the jeep: Rocky Shi, in sunglasses and wearing a vest festooned with pockets of the sort a photographer might wear. Mangan lowered his window. Rocky pushed his sunglasses up onto his head, beamed, spoke in Mandarin.

  “Lai ba.” Come.

  Mangan craned his head out of the jeep’s window, looked around.

  “Are you alone?” he said.

  “No,” said Rocky, pleasantly. “One more in the car. Lai, lai.”

  Mangan checked his mirrors one more time. A blue Mercedes had stopped about two hundred meters behind him.

  Could be anything.

  He opened the door and stepped from the car.

  They walked up the hillside, Rocky first, Mangan following, touching his top pocket, making sure the pen Patterson had given him was in place. Women were unloading donkeys, taking the burlap bags, turning them down and laying them on the ground. Lentils, teff, grains Mangan did not recognize. Gesho leaves for making beer. Some stringy vegetables, tomatoes. The women squatted in the mud by the burlap bags, watched the two men. Rocky stopped.

  “They’ve come down from the villages,” said Rocky. “Some of them have walked very far, eight, ten miles.”

  He walked over to a woman in a brown T-shirt and a ruffled skirt whose goods were meager. He stood over her, spoke in halt
ing Amharic. She looked up at him, replied, and made a gesture that seemed to indicate far away.

  “She says before she never came here, but now the cost of living is so high, she must farm and sell. Her husband is in Addis, looking for work on the building sites.”

  He spoke to her again, and she reached into a bag and brought out a phone, handed it to him.

  “But she has a mobile phone,” said Rocky. He turned it over in his hand, showed it to Mangan. On the back cover was the corporate logo of CNaC. Rocky tapped the phone with his index finger, gave Mangan a knowing look.

  What is this? thought Mangan. Why are we here? The blue Mercedes was still parked at the roadside, a short distance down the highway.

  They walked on, to the top of the hill. Rocky stopped. They looked at the market spread out beneath them, the mud, wood smoke, the silent donkeys with matted fur.

  “It’s so backward,” said Rocky. “But that’s a Chinese road and a Chinese phone. Do you see America here anywhere? Do you see Europe, Britain?”

  Mangan decided that these were rhetorical questions.

  Rocky was grinning.

  “But now I really want to show you something amazing,” he said. “Show you what China can do.”

  Mangan turned toward him, so that the lens could capture Rocky Shi’s visage with sufficient clarity. But Rocky was already making his way down the hill, back toward the vehicles.

  They drove another eight miles or so, Mangan following the white Toyota, the road winding through flat, muddied country speckled with villages half-seen in the distance, fields of chat. The Toyota drove fast, accelerated past the crawling buses. Mangan struggled to keep up, the jeep rattling as he overtook, swore to himself. British agent fails to make crucial rendezvous due to weak driving skills. Then the Toyota slowed and he saw, on the right, set back from the road, a wire security fence, high, sturdy, well built, of the sort that might surround a military facility. Beyond the fence, a quarter of a mile from the road, enormous warehouses, or hangars, ten or twelve of them, rose out of the fields. The Toyota signaled and pulled over at a gate facility with stadium lights and a watchtower looming over it. Mangan watched Rocky lower his window and talk to two uniformed Ethiopian security guards. One of the guards spoke briefly on a mobile phone.