by Adam Brookes
“When?”
“This month.”
“She said that?”
“Before the Beidaihe meeting.”
Her mouth was like sandpaper. She felt clammy, her clothes clinging to her. She was frightened, she realized, and exhausted. Gristle looked appalled.
“What happens now?” she said.
“Now?” he repeated. “Now, you go back to Oxford and get ready.”
“Ready? For what?”
“Fan Kaikai’s an easy target. He talks too much. He doesn’t know how much he knows.”
He looked at her.
“They may come for him,” he said.
She nodded. He was looking past her, into some private nightmare. “The fucking soldiers, you know. Self-righteous bastards. Always muttering about how special they are. How they’re better than the people they serve.” He was holding a cigarette between his second and third fingers, shaking a lighter.
“What happens?” she said.
The snick of the lighter.
“What happens? Well, after what we’ve done to his daughter, General Chen goes berserk, I imagine.”
It was getting light. Nicole went downstairs, found a couch, slept.
58
For a spy, Patterson reflected, there truly are no coincidences.
She had been putting her jacket on, clearing her desk of every last scrap of paper, logging off for the day, when the ping from the Police National Computer ticked up on her screen.
Another one?
She sat down.
A Thames Valley Police report.
MADELINE CHEN, PRC NATIONAL, STUDENT, CURRENTLY RESIDING OXFORD, REPORTED MISSING.
Today’s date.
REPORT FILED BY FAN KAIKAI, PRC NATIONAL, STUDENT, CURRENTLY RESIDING OXFORD.
She called the detective, a DC Busby, on his mobile phone. Hubbub in the background.
“Give me a minute,” he said. The hubbub receded.
“Very distraught, he was,” said Busby. “Said he’d been around to her house, no answer, didn’t answer her phone. Didn’t reply to messages he left in her pigeonhole, whatever that means.”
“How long?” she asked.
“Well, that’s just it. Twenty-four hours, less. I told him, not much we can do. She’s an adult. Give it some time, she’ll turn up. But he was screeching down the phone. ‘No, no, you don’t understand, something’s happened, she’s been taken away by…’ well, I couldn’t understand much to be honest. He was becoming rather emotional.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“Talk to Five. Get a warrant.”
“I’ve got one.”
“Really?”
“No.”
There was a pause.
“That’s a problem.”
“No, it’s not.”
Another, longer pause.
“Well, I might be going to check up on young Mr. Fan in about two hours’ time.”
“I’ll be there.”
“No, you won’t be. And if you were, you wouldn’t say anything.”
“Not a thing.”
She wouldn’t—couldn’t—take a Service car. Instead, she booked one online, jogged to Horseferry Road to pick it up. She pulled out into the traffic, pushed and nosed her way across the West End. The way out of town was slow but it cleared on the M40 and she drove into blinding evening sunlight, into a green-gold middle England.
As she drove, she tried to lay the pieces out, place them in order.
A new source brings gifts, but we do not know from where, or why.
Someone is probing. There is a plan.
Among the gifts, weapons to hurt the Fans, their corporation. Weapons to pierce the political-corporate heart of power in China.
We have found a place where two plates meet.
The Fan boy’s laptop is stolen.
The Chen girl disappears.
There are no coincidences.
By eight she was parking in St Giles. Detective Constable Busby was leaning against his car. He looked pointedly at his watch.
“What did he say to you, on the phone? Exactly, what did he say?”
“Good evening to you, too. Can I see some ID?”
She pulled her badge from her pocket and he fingered it, intrigued.
“Please,” she said. “This could be very, very important.”
He gave her a lingering look, then folded his arms, speaking in a way meant to signify disbelief.
“He said there was some sort of plot. In China. That this missing girl, Madeline Chen, had said, no, hinted, to him that there was a plot in China, and ‘people’ were coming to take him. Fan Kaikai. Here, in Oxford. But then she’s the one who disappears. Can you imagine? Not often we get global intrigue here. Not often I get to talk to people like you.”
“Who was coming to take him?”
“Just these ‘people.’ They’re already here, apparently, wandering our sylvan streets. None of it made any sense. To me at least. Maybe it does to you.” He looked down at her badge again, then handed it back to her.
“I need to ask him—”
“You don’t ask him anything. You have no jurisdiction, you have no warrant. You lot may not operate on UK soil without authorization. I will ask him.”
She held her hands up.
“Ask him, please, for whatever he can tell us about these ‘people.’ Who they are, who they represent. Why they are doing what they are doing.”
“What are they doing?” said Busby.
“I don’t know, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you.”
He grimaced.
“You can assure me that this is… important, can you?”
She just nodded. He looked her up and down, then pushed himself off the car and started along the street.
Kai answered their knock, wide-eyed in a T-shirt, shorts, flip-flops. They went into his rooms. Patterson noted the bare walls, the lack of possessions, clothing strewn on the floor, the smell of bedding, sleep. The room of a child, she thought.
They sat. DC Busby cleared his throat.
“Mr. Fan, these people you referred to. The ones who are coming for you, who are they, please?”
“They are, maybe, from the Chen family.”
The detective frowned.
“They are family members?”
“No, no. They are like bodyguards, or security. Probably they are military.”
“Military? Well, now. You are suggesting we have Chinese soldiers on the streets of Oxford.”
“The Chens, they are military. They have many supporters.”
“And why would they want to harm you?”
“They… they hate my family, yes. But there is more, I think.”
“What more?” said Patterson. The detective turned and glared at her. “Is there something happening in China? Is someone attacking your family, your father, your uncle, maybe?”
The boy looked alarmed.
“I… I don’t know…”
“What my colleague means,” Busby began, “is—”
The door flew open. Kai jumped almost out of his chair. A woman strode in, dropped a bag on the floor. She stopped and looked at them: first the detective, then at Patterson. Very calm, very controlled. Of East Asian appearance, slender, striking, even in jeans and fleece and no makeup, and her hair up in a casual knot. Holds herself well, athletic, fit. Without saying a word the woman turned and regarded Kai, and Patterson saw the cold fury in her. The boy shrank. He’s terrified, she thought. The woman’s eyes flickered past the boy, to the other room, then to the detective, his shoulders, torso, then to Patterson, running over her waist.
She’s looking for weapons.
Busby spoke, held out his business card.
“We were just having a short conversation with Mr. Fan here. We’ll be done soon.”
The woman looked at his card.
“Well, I think Mr. Fan has probably answered enough questions for now,” she said.
American accent, intonation,
layered over the clip of south China. Taiwan, maybe? Who the hell is she?
Patterson spoke.
“We were asking Mr. Fan about the disappearance of a… a fellow student of his, Madeline Chen. Were you aware of—”
DC Busby was speaking over her.
“Yes, might we ask if you are aware of Miss Chen’s whereabouts?”
The woman was staring at Patterson. She’s wondering why I don’t get to ask the questions. Why I don’t give her a business card.
The woman had turned to the detective.
“I am not aware of Madeline Chen, or of her disappearance. Mr. Fan has no information either.” She turned to the boy. “Do you?” He said nothing, looked down, his fingers clenched tight in his lap.
She’s cool as a bloody cucumber, thought Patterson. Busby could see it too.
“Might I ask your name and the nature of your relationship with Mr. Fan?”
“You may not ask my name and I am a family friend. That is all. And I think it is time for you to leave. Mr. Fan has nothing else to say.”
Patterson stood.
“I’m not sure we are ready to leave quite yet,” she said with a smile.
The woman held out her hand.
“Identification,” she snapped.
“That won’t be necessary,” said the detective.
“Why won’t she show me identification? Who is she?” said the woman, her voice rising. She bent down suddenly, reaching for her bag on the floor. She pulled a phone from it, pointed it directly at Patterson and snapped three pictures, the snick sound of the simulated shutter.
I have just been made, thought Patterson.
This woman is a professional.
DC Busby had his hands out in a calming gesture and was burbling about how sorry he was, and how we’d be going now. But Patterson raised an index finger, pointed at the woman and spoke in Mandarin. “I think you and I can help each other,” she said.
The woman cocked her head to one side. She had beautiful, hard eyes, eyes that a certain kind of man would submit to.
“Zhen de ma?” Really? she said.
Busby was hopping from one foot to another with anxiety.
I will just hazard this one, thought Patterson.
“We need to know what the Chens are doing. Here, and in China,” she said.
The woman considered, measuring her response.
She knows.
“Whatever they thought they were doing,” the woman said, “it is no longer relevant.”
Patterson opened her mouth to speak again, but she felt the detective’s hand on her arm.
“That’s enough,” he hissed.
“You should listen to him,” said the woman, with a dismissive flick of her wrist.
Patterson felt a surge of anger, the urge to act: to take the step forward, put heel to knee, knuckle to throat. The woman sensed it and moved a step away from her, her eyes dropping to Patterson’s hands.
“We are leaving. Now,” said the detective.
Patterson looked at the woman as Busby tugged at her sleeve. She spoke in Mandarin again.
“I will be seeing you again. Soon.”
The woman actually smiled.
“Don’t wish for things you can’t have,” she said.
As he closed the door behind them, Patterson, furious, lingered on the staircase and listened, and heard from inside the room the beginning of her tirade against the boy, delivered in controlled, rapid Taiwan-inflected Mandarin: just what in the name of god were you doing talking to the police, you fucking imbecile. But DC Busby was pulling her away down the creaking staircase.
Patterson pulled onto the motorway in twilight, Busby’s raging admonishments to silence ringing in her ears. She pushed him out of her mind, tried to let the thoughts come by themselves, to let the pieces float and move and cohere.
Over here, the establishment: Chinese royalty, cloaked in wealth, dripping with corporate and Party power.
And over there, an insurgency.
They are circling each other, sniffing the air, readying for the fight.
And where will Mangan be when it all starts? she wondered.
Where is my agent?
59
London
Patterson, red-eyed, caffeine-jangled, stood at the door to Hopko’s sanctum. Hopko was standing behind her desk, gathering papers, a notepad, her handheld. She spoke quietly, without looking at Patterson.
“Where were you yesterday evening?”
Patterson did not reply.
“Did you take the evening off? You probably deserved it, I should say.” She looked up and smiled.
“Val… they’re here. On UK soil,” said Patterson.
“Who is?”
“The Chen people. Military. I think something might… might have happened. In Oxford.”
Hopko nodded, non-committal.
“I see,” she said.
She peered at what seemed to be an encounter report. Then she straightened as if a thought had struck her. The movement injected a streak of menace into the air.
“Good communication is awfully important, isn’t it?” Hopko said. “I mean, for a business that’s all about betrayal, trust is vital. Don’t you think?”
Patterson, confused, nodded. Hopko spoke again.
“The trouble with going off the reservation, Trish, is that it corrupts the intelligence, doesn’t it? Makes it unusable, don’t you see?”
Hopko gave her a lingering look, then was suddenly all motion, sweeping past her.
“Come with me,” she said.
Patterson followed, clenching her fist to generate self-recriminatory pain, jabbing her fingernails into the palm of her hand.
They were in the secure conference room, Hopko herself presiding, wearing her battle face, expensively suited in black, at once austere and lavish.
“The sample,” she told the room, “will soon be under the microscopes in the Defence Intelligence labs at Gosport. The memory stick is on its way to Cheltenham to be disinfected.”
Hopko leaned over the table.
“Early indications,” she said, “are that HYPNOTIST’s latest offerings are of prodigious importance. He appears to have spilled the beans on the J-20 stealth fighter. For which we are truly grateful. We anticipate starred CX. We intend to grade the product A1.”
The highest grade of intelligence, from a proven source. Prodigious indeed, thought Patterson.
“Amen,” said Chapman-Biggs.
C was unfolding, mantis-like.
“My,” he said.
Hopko waited to see if anything more was forthcoming. Security Branch was silent. She went on.
“Our attention must now turn to the complex operational exigencies of the case.” She looked over her glasses, fingered the Coptic cross around her neck. “Everybody’s thoughts, please.”
It’s a triumph, Val. We’ve stumbled across the best-placed, most loose-lipped China source in years. He’s deep in 2PLA and he’s got dirt on the leadership. And never mind if he’s also got ulterior motives and a band of groupies. Wring him dry.
It’s a bust, Val. HYPNOTIST is just a player. Someone else is leading us a dance. We’re dating a psychopath and soon he’s going to want to screw us. Get out while we can.
It’s all academic, Val. The opposition is sniffing us like we’re in heat. Nice while it lasted. Rain stops play and everybody goes home.
“Trish?” said Hopko.
Oh, Christ.
“Our immediate concern must be the welfare of BRAMBLE.” She licked her lips and tried not to bark out the words. “He is highly exposed. He is the object of aggressive surveillance. We must extract him. Only then should we make decisions about the future of the operation, when we have his read on it.”
C spoke.
“BRAMBLE remains in place.”
He stood, stalked from the room.
Hopko picked it up.
“It has been decided,” she said, “that you will deploy as soon as possible, Trish.
You will establish a safe house. You’ll debrief BRAMBLE. You and he will reestablish contact with HYPNOTIST as soon as is feasible. You’ll be joined by E Squadron personnel who will take over responsibility for his security.”
Her years in the army and in the Service had lent Patterson the ability to decrypt orders given her, to strip them down and reduce them to their essence.
This one: Go, with heavies. Force Mangan back into the breach.
A pause.
“Do you have any questions?” said Hopko.
Plenty.
“None,” she said.
Chiang Mai
Mangan woke mid-afternoon, wrenching himself from some place of panic, from images of a cold highway in sleet, of a bulbous little knife with a rubber handle in his palm, blood-sheened.
He tried to move, but his ribs screamed. In the course of sleep, his injuries seemed to have multiplied. His wrists and forearms throbbed, his neck felt stiff and jarred. He lay, tried to flex each limb, feeling ridiculous.
He forced himself from the bed, went to the shower, stood in the cool water, thinking about the previous night, the fall from the roof, the visitation from the big, brush-cut figure that, were he to dwell on it, would preoccupy him entirely. How the hell? He put on a T-shirt and jeans, limped downstairs to the reception desk, where he pressed two hundred baht into the hands of the permed lady and asked for someone to send out for food. Anything, he said. Anything will do. And some water. He went back upstairs.
He logged onto the darknet site.
Remain in place. Personnel en route. Instructions to follow>
A tap at the door. He wondered why he had put the sidearm in the cistern.
“Food, mister.”
“Just leave it outside.”
“Food.”
“Yes, just leave it.”
A scuffing at the door, footsteps receding down the stairs.
It was a big bowl of khao soi, the noodles in a coconut curry, loaded with glistening, crispy belly pork and pickles and scattered with fresh coriander. Mangan looked at it and his hands began to shake and hunger hit him like a train. He sat on the bed, squeezed lime juice into the bowl, started to eat, then to wolf it, the sweet, mellow heat of it blazing in him, strength surging back.