by Adam Brookes
They walked on, into the spice market, her hand suddenly in his. He took her down a covered alleyway, a narrow maze of stalls, the light tinted yellow from a corrugated plastic roof, porters elbowing past them, shouting, laughter, the women carving great slabs of kocho, the white banana root, pounded and fermented, falling off the knife. Maja stopped in front of an elderly woman in a plaid scarf, little white burlap sacks arrayed before her. Feto seeds for grinding and mixing with lemon, for purification. Kohl for the eyes. Ades leaf for infusing in butter, combing into the hair. Sulfur for wounds and exorcism. The woman put crumbs of incense into a twist of paper and pressed them into Maja’s hand, waved her away with a smile.
They stopped somewhere deep in the alleyways, sat on plastic stools, while two women grinned at them and chattered in Amharic, its playful, questioning ring. The women took coffee beans from a sack, shook them onto a skillet atop a clay brazier, moved them around with the tiny rake as they roasted. Mangan watched, smoked. Maja leaned forward, smelled the roasting coffee. The women dropped shards of frankincense into the brazier, wafted the smoke over Mangan and Maja, gestured for them to breathe deeply, breathe it in, this richness. The women ground the beans, brewed the coffee, poured cups and passed it to them. It was sweet and dark, the frankincense lingering on it.
Maja was quiet, regarded Mangan, then spoke.
“I was thinking I might move back up here, to Addis.”
“Really? Leave the clinic?”
“I’m not sure how much more I can take down there. I’m feeling burned out, frightened.”
“Perhaps you should think about a break. Going home.”
“Oh, should I?”
“Well, I mean…”
“Yes, perhaps I should.” She looked down, paused. She put her cup down.
“Philip, do you think there is any possibility that you and I might… might connect? I mean, really? If I came back to Addis we could, perhaps, try, no? I think of it, sometimes. No, a lot, actually. But you seem so… preoccupied. You seem so… absent. A bomb goes off, and you are all business.”
Mangan wondered how to respond. She was looking at him intently and he was aware that this was some kind of inflection point.
Could he tell her? Hint at it, maybe? The danger she was in? Don’t worry, Maja, my reticence is explained by the fact that I am the operative of a secret intelligence agency. My true interests lie in providing targets for lethal drone strikes. Oh, and by associating with me, you are exposing yourself to the scrutiny of several intelligence agencies whose good manners are not to be relied upon.
“It’s possible I might not be staying here too much longer myself,” he said.
And as he said it, he felt an imagined life recede, dissipate into the air.
38
The traces on Rocky Shi were through. Patterson sat, head in hands, plowing through them, watching the man take shape, trying to sense the meaning of his experiences.
From 1998, out of the United Nations mission in the Sinai, an appreciation of the then Major Shi Hang, written in starchy prose by an Australian colleague who was clearly intrigued to encounter the fabled Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Major Shi Hang—“though he insists on the use of a nickname, Rocky”—was a valued member of the UN mission, apparently, enduring the long, hot patrols into the Sinai with professionalism, reporting punctiliously upon ceasefire violations by Egyptian or Israeli forces, as was his mission. The Australian officer found Major Shi somewhat wanting in military deportment—“he smokes heavily and does not join in calisthenics,” yet he was “approachable, cheerful and good for morale. An accomplished cook, he has been known to return to base in possession of live poultry, which he will transform into a tasty Chinese soup for the benefit of himself and his brother officers.”
Major Shi, it is ascertained, is an officer of the Second Department of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff Headquarters (2PLA). That is to say, he is an officer of Chinese military intelligence, information that is relayed with a certain frisson.
And from this one fixed point of reference, Rocky Shi’s life and career can be found out.
Major Shi Hang, alias Rocky, now to be known as HYPNOTIST, pops up all over the place, as you would expect of a resourceful military intelligence officer.
Special Branch in Hong Kong made him, back in the early nineties, as part of a covert Chinese presence in Hong Kong in advance of the colony’s return to Chinese rule. And what was he doing there? “Specific intelligence on Shi Hang’s operational role continues to elude us,” Special Branch conceded wearily.
There he was in Honolulu, a military diplomat on a rare trip to United States Pacific Command in 2006, escorting an anvil-faced major-general named Chen. “Urbane and attentive,” reads the PACOM report, “Major Shi was a keen observer, an active questioner and an enthusiastic golfer.” Crucially, the report included a group photograph. Rocky, in uniform, stood at the edge of the group, a generous grin plastered across his face, in contrast to the flinty gaze of General Chen.
And here, a liaison report from a furious CIA station chief in Tashkent, where Rocky, as China’s deputy military attaché, has infuriated the Americans with his charming and good-natured subversion of the Pentagon’s plans for permanent air bases in Uzbekistan.
A true professional, as Hopko had foreseen.
The car rental had been paid in cash, no useful address. The mobile phone number led nowhere. It had called a grand total of three other numbers in its short life. One was Mangan’s, the second was the Chinese embassy in Addis, the third appeared to belong to an expensive Ethiopian lady who frequented a “closed house” near Bole airport, whose favors a wealthy, visiting Chinese businessman might be expected to enjoy. Hopko strongly suspected that Rocky Shi was, again, teasing them.
Not a whiff of his motive, not a whiff of his objective. Just the lingering sense that Rocky Shi had a pitch, that he had not yet made it, that he was waiting.
In the safe flat, Patterson stood while Mangan lounged on the sofa as she briefed him on what they now knew of Colonel Shi. Mangan responded by turning, she thought, a little pale.
“London feels the need for a stronger ‘operational footing,’” she said.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that at the moment we are all just hanging on dear Colonel Shi’s largesse. And they don’t like that. It makes them uneasy. They want a clear commitment, an arrangement they understand.”
“And what sort of arrangement would that be?”
“Come on, Philip. One that relies on the tried and the tested motive for the agent: money or ideology or coercion or ego.”
Mangan paused, considered.
“That’s pretty unimaginative, isn’t it?” he said. “Aren’t people more complex than that?”
“Agents may be. London-based operational planners, not so much.”
“And how am I supposed to ease him into an understanding of his own motives?”
“Well, he talked about money before, didn’t he? So you can pursue that with him. But more than that, you’re to get him talking,” she said. “Talk about the future. Get him to envisage his future, with us. Let a plan form.”
“If he is the professional you say he is, he’ll know instantly what I am trying to do.”
“There is that.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m passing on instructions.”
He waited. She felt his eyes on her.
“What does she say, your boss? The clever one with all the jangly jewelry,” he said.
“She sees things differently.”
“How?”
Patterson pondered the wisdom of revealing to him Hopko’s unconventional wisdom.
“She thinks that Rocky Shi wants something other than a conventional arrangement. Something more. That there’s something larger at work here.”
He was listening carefully.
“And what does that mean for me?”
“She believes that you have the gift. That you can open people up, bring them to a point where they reveal themselves. So go and talk to him. Just see what you find.”
He stood up and pulled on his coat.
“And you? Will you be anywhere in the vicinity?”
“No.”
“Can I ask why?”
“I’m grounded.”
“But it’s all right for me to go and get snooped on.” He was trying to be jocular, but she could sense tension coursing through him.
“You’re starting to see how this works, then,” she said, realizing as she did how cruel it sounded. She opened the front door of the flat for him. He stopped and gave her a searching look, a half-smile, then he was gone. She closed the door quietly, wondering once again why he had chosen as he had.
39
Just before midnight, Mangan took a couch in the corner on the third floor of Sky Club, the dance floor pulsating below, loud enough to obscure a conversation, just distant enough to render conversation possible. He ordered a bottle of Black Label, watched. When girls came over, sat down next to him and crossed their long silky legs, leaned against him, he smiled and said, “Maybe later.”
Rocky appeared after twenty minutes, a big, anticipatory grin on his face. He wore stone-colored slacks and a smart blazer. He would be dapper, Mangan thought, but for his slight ungainliness, his splay-footed walk. Rocky sat on the couch, gestured with pleasure to the bottle of Black Label. Mangan poured, added a little water.
“To us, Philip,” said Rocky. He was speaking English.
“For sure,” said Mangan.
“To cooperation.”
“All right, then.”
They drank, sat in silence for a moment.
“Found any more promising investments?” said Mangan.
“You,” said Rocky. “You are my promising investment.” He laughed.
“Tell me how that works,” said Mangan, smiling.
“Soon.”
Another pause.
“So, got any family, Rocky? Parents, wives? Where are they, then? Back home minding the hearth?”
A flicker of surprise on Rocky’s face.
“No, no. Not married. Parents long gone.”
“Why not married? Attractive chap like you.”
Rocky looked to be pondering the question, as if for the first time.
“I don’t know. Married to work, maybe.” He sipped his whisky, then gestured with his glass to Mangan, index finger extended along its rim. “Yes. Married to my work.” He laughed again.
“And what about your father? You said he was a soldier.”
“Did I? Yes. Big soldier. Infantry. Fought the Americans in Korea. Later, he commanded a division.”
“He must have been proud of you.”
Rocky adopted an expression of disbelief. His expressions were contrived, deliberately assembled, thought Mangan. There is no spontaneity in him. Now I shall appear disbelieving. Mark the extent of my disbelief.
“Proud? Of me? No. He was, you can say, very tough.”
“Really? How?”
“He thinks that young people don’t know how to chi ku. You know chi ku?”
Chi, to eat. Ku, a bitter taste. To eat bitterness. To suffer, endure privation. “Yes,” said Mangan.
“So he make sure I can chi ku. Any bad marks, or trouble at school, he takes his belt and pshh, pshh.” He made whipping movements in the air with his free hand, his face alight with astonished humor. “Oh! It hurt so much. My mother tried to stop him, but she could not. She was so weak, useless. No good.”
He drank.
“One time I left the dinner table before I finished my food. There’s still some food in my bowl. And he says, why are you leaving your food? And I said, oh, it’s not good. It was hong shao rou, you know? Red cooked pork. Very fatty. I didn’t like it.” His eyes went wide, as if the memory still revolted him. “And my father, he just exploded. He’s shouting! How dare you waste food! How dare you say it’s not good! It’s the favorite food of Chairman Mao! And he picks up the hong shao rou in his hand. And he rubs it all over my face, this fat, in my nose and eyes, everything. Too disgusting. So I start to… how do you say, tu…”
“Throw up.”
“Yes, I start to throw up, and then he takes my collar and drags me outside. It was winter, very cold. And he makes me kneel down on the ice and I have to stay there for a long time. So cold! And this fat all over my face, and the smell. And the other kids come out and start mocking me and throwing ice and snow.”
He started laughing, shaking his head.
“So I had to become a soldier, too, of course. But not an infantry officer. I chose my way. So my father was mad again. Such a bastard. What can I do?”
“Did he ever talk about Korea?”
“Yes. He had stories about it. Lots of chi ku, of course. He was in the fighting at Chosin Reservoir. No food, and they wore just canvas shoes in the snow, so their feet all froze. Trumpets sounding the charge, straight into American machine guns. And then, later, he was in the tunnels. Some mountain somewhere they tried to hold. No water, so he sat in the darkness, inside the mountain, holding a cup waiting for drops of water from the rock. And he ordered three men to hold the mouth of the tunnel, and they lasted eight minutes, and then he sent another three, and on.”
He lit a cigarette, held it between his thumb and forefinger. At the sight of the two of them, a Westerner and a Chinese businessman drinking expensive whisky, the girls lingered, cast glances. One caught Mangan’s eye and walked slowly toward their table. She was attempting a model’s walk, the swing in the hips. She leaned over them, a gorgeous caramel-skinned girl, her dress white, skin-tight.
Mangan smiled at her, was about to gently shoo her away, when Rocky turned on her.
“What the fuck you want?”
The girl’s face fell.
“Just, maybe, you like company?” She held her hand out. Rocky batted it away.
“You get lost. Now,” he snarled. And Mangan glimpsed it again, behind the carefully constructed joviality, some flicker of rage.
The girl looked to Mangan, who just shook his head, and she straightened up and walked away. Rocky made a dismissive gesture, muttered under his breath, then turned back and regarded Mangan.
You. You are my investment.
“But it sounds as if the army has given you a great career,” Mangan said, carefully.
“Oh, yes. Yes, it has. I have traveled a lot and I have some great comrades,” said Rocky, equanimity restored.
“You must have seen many changes. In the military. During your career.”
Rocky was looking at him, amusedly, a sharpness to his humor now. He broke into quick, incisive Mandarin.
“What can I tell you, Philip? What do you need?”
“Need?”
“That will satisfy your people.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Come on, Philip. You want my motive. Of course you do. That I’ll be passed over for promotion? That’s true enough. No senior command for me, nothing to match my father’s. That I earn a pitiful army salary, while everyone in China gets rich? God knows that’s true, too. That I am resentful? That I loathe the creeps who run the Party? That I loathe their duplicitous shit about the Three Represents and the Harmonious Society and the China Dream and the Six Bend Overs, while their children and siblings siphon billions into offshore accounts thoughtfully provided for them and administered on their behalf by Great Britain and its dependencies?”
Mangan didn’t respond.
“Tell them all that if you want. Tell them. And tell them I want my own little offshore account. With twenty thousand a month. No. Twenty-five thousand. So they’ll know my motive. And then we’re all happy.”
“Pounds or dollars?” Mangan asked after a beat.
Rocky gave him a wide grin, but his gaze was straight and level. Then he drew on his cigarette deeply and exhaled, a long stream of smoke toward the ceiling, and his eyes f
lickered to something behind Mangan.
“Oh dear,” he said. “And we were having such a nice evening.”
40
The first thing Mangan noticed was the way the girls were drawing away, standing up, smoothing their skirts and then moving quickly off, leaving their drinks. In his peripheral vision, he saw one of the club security guards come toward them, then stop and move away again, his look hesitant. Mangan was conscious of the dance music still pounding beneath them. Rocky sat immobile, looking past him, trying to summon a look of injured innocence.
Mangan turned.
Behind him were three Ethiopian men, unmoving, unsmiling. The first of them wore a light blue suit, a brown tie and held a mobile phone. He was balding, with a face seemingly hewn from dark, pitted rock, with hooded eyes. The other two were in open-necked shirts and jackets, one on the cusp of middle age, heavily spectacled. The other was older, lanky, grizzled. All of them were watching Mangan.
Rocky stubbed out his cigarette, sitting primly on the edge of the couch.
Mangan thought furiously. What was he carrying? Nothing. Patterson had done her work: he was clean.
Calm and a good cover story are your friends, Philip.
And this is how it works.
Blue Suit gestured, a barely noticeable twitch of his mobile phone. You’ll come with us now. The eyes in that face made Mangan think of something ceramic, something scoured. Mangan opened his hands, as if to say, what? I don’t understand. Rocky did nothing, looked straight ahead.
Blue Suit gave a tight shake of the head. Spectacles walked slowly over to where they were seated and leaned down.
“We just want to talk. A few minutes. Please.” He stood again, made a concierge’s gesture. This way, gentlemen.
“We can talk here,” said Mangan. Spectacles just gestured again.
“Please identify yourselves,” said Mangan, playing the irritated journalist. No response. He sensed Rocky giving him a sympathetic look.
Spectacles leaned down to the table and picked up the bottle of whisky. He held it, looked at the label admiringly, hefted the bottle in his hand. He looked about himself. The space around the couch had emptied. Spectacles drew back his arm and with a startling ferocity hurled the bottle to the tiled floor, where it shattered, fragments of glass arcing into the air. Mangan flinched, smelled the stench of the spilled whisky. Spectacles glared at the two of them.