Red Cell

by Mark Henshaw

  She stepped away, took Roland’s hand, and the husband-and-wife team walked out into the hallway. Kyra closed the door and marked the time on her watch. It was going to be a very long ten minutes.

  The deadline came and the phone never rang. Kyra took Pioneer by the hand and they ran anyway.

  MARRIOTT HOTEL, ROOM 745

  3C CHONG WEN MEN WAI STREET

  CHONG WEN DISTRICT, BEIJING

  The hotel suite that Mitchell had arranged was larger and far nicer than Jonathan had expected. The US Government was not usually extravagant when paying for travel accommodations, but the NCS had its own standards. The analyst had heard stories, exaggerated he’d thought, about how well some case officers lived on the road, but this room lived up to them. The suite featured a very large sitting and dining area, divided from the kitchenette by a wet bar, and a bedroom separated by a sliding French door with opaque glass panes set in a grid. Jonathan parted the suite’s heavy white curtains an inch, which was enough to see that the view of the Forbidden City was inspiring. The food service had been excellent, with classic Italian cuisine on the menu as well as the local favorites. The television dominating the near wall was an impressive plasma display so large that Jonathan knew he would never be able to afford one for his own home. Mitchell had the volume up high enough to annoy both Jonathan and anyone who might try listening through hidden microphones. The senior analyst wished that he could afford such places on his own salary when he was traveling privately. Analysts didn’t get approvals for this kind of accommodation. Jonathan accepted that with a grudge, but he had no desire to play on the case officers’ field, no matter what the perks were.

  In truth, he had no interest in the room’s interior design. He shifted his feet, clasped his hands behind his back, and tried to suppress the part of his mind shouting that his study of it was an effort at self-distraction. He was trying very hard not to wonder where Kyra was at the moment.

  Mitchell had chosen the suite at random. Beijing had thousands of hotels, likely hundreds of thousands of rooms for rent, and even the MSS could not bug them all. At least that was the theory. There was still a decent chance that somewhere in the basement the MSS was listening, but Mitchell didn’t seem worried. Jonathan was sure it was a poker face. No cover story would hold up if they were raided. If they were arrested and Pioneer identified, whatever they told the Chinese government would be irrelevant. The MSS would consider proximity to be guilt, and none of them would set foot on United States soil again for a very long time. Jonathan had been in war zones, but he doubted that he had ever been in as much danger as he was this evening.

  Mitchell sat at the cherry dining table finishing the remains of his risotto while a plate of pastry fritters waited on the side. Jonathan had tried to beg off the food—his jet-lagged stomach didn’t think it was time to eat—but Mitchell insisted and the analyst took a bowl of gnocchi. Mitchell had ordered frittate for Kyra and Pioneer, and it was keeping warm under a tray cover. Jonathan was sure she would appreciate the wine. His initial thought had been to wait to order until she arrived—he refused to think in terms of if—but he supposed that once Pioneer was in the room, Mitchell wouldn’t want anyone coming to the door.

  Jonathan looked at the digital clock on the writing desk by the window. “We’re behind schedule,” Mitchell said.

  “We have a schedule?” Jonathan asked.

  “Always,” Mitchell said. “Twenty minutes late, but she’s still inside her window. If she doesn’t get here in the next ten minutes, we might have to push everyone back to the next flight.” He set his utensils on the plate, picked up a fritter, and walked over to the window.

  There was a knock at the door. Jonathan resisted the urge to answer it, instead letting Mitchell take the job in case there was some private entry protocol he’d arranged. If there was one, it was subtle. The senior NCS officer simply looked through the peephole and opened the door. The woman at the door was shorter than Kyra, with shoulder-length dark hair. She was dressed in casual clothing and dragging a wheeled suitcase behind. She marched past Mitchell and he closed the door to the hallway.

  “John, this is Anna Monaghan,” Mitchell said. “She’s with S and T”—the Agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology. “John’s an analyst.”

  Anna offered her hand. “Cooke told me about you before I got on the plane.”

  “Then you’re a recent import?” Jonathan asked.

  “I am,” Anna said. “Just got in. Hate the flight from Dulles. Coming down over Russian airspace drives me up the wall.”

  “The Russkies don’t shoot down airliners anymore,” Mitchell said. “And you won’t be here long enough to get lagged. After you do your beauty work on our friend, you’re on the first flight out tomorrow,” Mitchell said.

  “A shame you won’t get the suite when we’re done,” Jonathan said.

  “I wish,” Anna said. “Same hotel, but I’m six floors down with the common folk.” She scanned the room and looked to Mitchell. “Stryker’s still on the street?”

  “Stepped out ninety minutes ago. She’s still got ten minutes,” Mitchell said. “Fifteen before I get really worried.”

  “I’ll set up in the bedroom. I need to steal the desk, and I am taking a shower.”

  “No arguments here,” Mitchell said. The woman rolled her case into the bedroom and closed the sliding door.

  Kyra and Pioneer entered the Marriott lobby twenty-two minutes behind schedule. The taxi driver had taken a winding route to find any persistent cars behind, and their surveillance detection run on foot had not turned out any hostiles. It still wasn’t a given that they were alone, but having made it this far was a promising development. Unless the MSS was running a particularly sophisticated operation, waiting to learn the hotel room number so they could arrest Pioneer together with his handler, their odds of escape had risen considerably. She hoped that their body doubles would not have to spend an unpleasant evening in the local lockup. The MSS would not be able to prove that their proximity and similar dress to a known traitor and his escort was sure evidence of participation in a conspiracy, but Kyra doubted that the MSS required proof beyond a reasonable doubt. She suspected that their threshold for conviction dropped as their annoyance level rose, and once they realized that Pioneer was no longer under their watch, the annoyance level would be stratospheric.

  Jonathan had been right. She was craving a shot of anything she could lay hands on, knowing this would be a terrible time for it. If the operation went south and Roland and Rebecca went to prison . . . she knew without a doubt that the imprisonment of two fellow officers as the price paid for her sake would drive her down into the bottle.

  Kyra cursed herself for letting her mind wander. It was like Venezuela again. She had picked a poor moment for self-examination. Still not safe. She exhaled, scanned the lobby, and found the elevators. She led Pioneer away from the front desk toward the lifts and reached for her front pocket. She extracted the disposable cell phone, a low-end Nokia.

  She dialed the second number preprogrammed into the phone, which was the chief of station’s number for his own rented disposable phone. Both units were destined for secure disposal, where and how Mitchell hadn’t bothered to tell her. This would be the last call her phone would ever make.

  She was surprised to hear Jonathan’s voice on the phone. “We’ve been waiting on you for dinner. Your frittata is cold,” he said. No doubt Mitchell had coached him on what to say. The first sentence was the pass phrase. The second was a bit of a rebuke. You’re late.

  He’s never made a call in Beijing, Kyra realized. The MSS won’t have his voiceprint. They would almost certainly have one of Mitchell, and having her talk to Jonathan would fit their cover story better if the cell phone was intercepted. They had come through customs together, so surveillance video and voiceprint matches would come together to support the cover story that they were traveling companions.

  “Sorry, I was talking to some friends,” she replied.
“I hope the food didn’t cost too much,” Kyra said. Pioneer is with me. Where are you?

  “Not too bad. Given the exchange rate, ten dollars and twenty-two cents, not counting the service fee.” Room 1022. The Third Department could figure out eventually what Jonathan had really said. First, they would need to separate the conversation from every other call made in Beijing by a Westerner at the same moment, triangulate Kyra’s position, and translate the conversation into Chinese. They would have to be bright enough to look up the Marriott’s price for frittate and realize that Jonathan was quite mistaken about it, given the day’s yuan-to-US dollar exchange rate. Kyra had worked in bureaucracies long enough to know that they wouldn’t manage the feat and get an armed team to room 1022 in the next hour.

  “Warm it up for me.” Coming up. She turned off the phone and led Pioneer to the elevator.

  Jonathan closed the phone and returned it to Mitchell. “Thanks,” Mitchell said. “I don’t know if the Chinese have a voiceprint of me they can match up, but no sense taking the chance. Don’t want them tracing my voice to find us.” He didn’t know how many they’d been able to collect of him over the years. None would be preferable, and anything higher than zero was bad news as far as the chief of station was concerned. Mitchell checked the clock. “We’re doing okay. Might be able to make up a little time on the road to the airport if traffic isn’t bad. We don’t want to be sitting around at the airport for a long stretch anyway.”

  “You’re coming too?” Jonathan asked.

  Mitchell glared at the analyst for a moment, then suppressed his frustration. “I tried to retrieve a dead drop before we figured out that Pioneer was burned. The MSS was probably watching the drop site, so I’m burned too. Hard to be a chief of station when the enemy knows what you do for a living. I’m Pioneer’s escort back to the States and I’m not coming back. My wife’s packing up the house right now and she’s flying home tomorrow. Anna’s going to give me a makeover after she finishes up with Pioneer and Stryker.”

  “Hard way to end a tour,” Jonathan said. It was as close to showing compassion as he could come with a stranger.

  “I was almost done here anyway. Would’ve been home by Independence Day,” Mitchell said. He smiled. “Next time I’m back at Langley, you’re going to have to explain to me how you talked Cooke into approving a debrief with Pioneer.”

  “A shame they don’t have a bar at headquarters. I don’t drink, but I’d buy you a beer for not throwing us out of your office when we showed up and told you what we wanted.”

  Mitchell chuckled. “To be honest, I was more surprised than angry, at first anyway.” He checked the clock again, walked to the door, and pulled it open. He’d timed his own ascent from the lobby to the room to get a ballpark estimate of the travel time. Kyra and Pioneer were approaching the room. Mitchell closed the door behind them and led them out of the front room. “Any problems?” he asked.

  “We confirmed surveillance at his apartment,” Kyra replied. “No one followed us after we left the building. I think our friends were able to draw everyone away. Good people. I hope they don’t get picked up.”

  “They might,” Mitchell conceded. “But Becca’s been toting that red backpack for years. If the MSS has been watching the building for any time at all, they’ll have seen her wearing it. They might figure out what happened after a while, but they’ll never be able to prove it.”

  Mitchell turned to Pioneer and spoke, this time in accented Mandarin. “Long Jian-Min, it is my honor to meet you in person. I regret that I cannot give you my name. Perhaps in the United States I will be able to do so. In a few minutes, we will dress you and take you to the airport. This gentleman needs to ask you some questions after we have delivered you safely out of the country, if that would be acceptable?” Mitchell was intentionally vague with the details, more out of habit than any particular concern that they had missed some listening device. Pioneer nodded politely.

  Jonathan moved close to Kyra. “Good to see you without a pair of handcuffs.”

  “You softie.”

  “Hardly. The Chinese built a big airport,” Jonathan explained. “I need somebody to watch my carry-on while I’m buying dinner in the airport terminal.”

  “So it’s still all about you?” Kyra asked.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Ah.”

  “All right, people,” Mitchell said. “Enough with the touchy-feely. We’re on the road in forty-five.” He pointed toward the back room. “Get our man back there. The clock’s ticking.”

  Monaghan’s tools of the trade were on display. The Directorate of Science and Technology officer had left a lucrative future as a makeup artist at Fox Studios in Los Angeles to work for the Agency, and Kyra had no doubt that the woman had been very good at her job. The portable electronics she was carrying were fascinating. During the Cold War, producing fake travel documents required a skilled forger with a steady hand who could copy signatures and poor-quality typesetting, but it wasn’t done by hand anymore.

  “You’re going out through the airport?” Monaghan asked.

  “Not much choice,” Kyra said.

  “Then I’ll have to set you up with something better than a gross profile change. If they’re looking for him”—Monaghan nodded toward Pioneer, who was sitting in the corner—“you can expect close inspection, maybe less than two feet.”

  “How are you getting out?” Kyra asked.

  “Oh, honey,” Monaghan said. “I’ve got my ways. Besides, I’ll be fine having a long cup of coffee with some handsome MSS officer if they really want me to stay. They won’t have anything on me. I’m leaving the gear with our people here.” She picked up a Ziploc bag full of bottles. “You go on into the bathroom and use this. You’ll make a real pretty brunette. And I hope you like short hair. Do you wear color contacts?”

  “No,” Kyra said.

  “You do now. A shame to cover up those pretty green eyes, but there’s no help for it. I’d bet that the MSS doesn’t know your eye color, but I’m not going to take the chance. Those boys have cameras everywhere. And you’re going to wear glasses too.” Monaghan picked up another Ziploc and pulled it open. “I’ll get started on our friend here. I’ll finish you up when I’m done with him.” Monaghan took Pioneer gently by the arm, led him to a chair, and picked up a bottle of spirit gum. Kyra squeezed his arm, then left him and stepped into the bathroom.

  They took separate cars. The airport traffic was light, which Kyra might have considered a sign of divine intervention had she been a religious woman. The open road meant no delays en route to the airport and offered the added benefit of keeping the enemy from hiding in traffic. Identifying hostile surveillance on foot was relatively easy compared to performing vehicular detection on any freeway during peak hours, and Kyra was sure that Beijing’s freeways were worse than most. At the moment, she wanted every advantage she could claim.

  Jonathan watched Kyra’s eyes look to the rearview mirror every few seconds. Courtesy of Monaghan, the woman was, by all appearances, a middle-aged brunette, short hair, glasses, wearing casual clothing and a bit overweight. Her height was unchanged and Monaghan hadn’t toyed with her build, though she was slightly broader across the shoulders and larger in the chest. Except for the added weight, it wasn’t a bad look for her, and he idly wondered how much of it she might choose to keep once they returned to the States. If we get that far, he thought.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kyra caught him studying her. “Sorry you didn’t get a makeover?” she asked. Jonathan hadn’t performed an operational act since their arrival, so there had been no reason to change his appearance. The MSS had no reason to suspect him of anything.

  “Hardly,” Jonathan said. “Anyone on us?”

  “Don’t think so,” Kyra said. “A couple of possibles, but they’re giving us plenty of space.” She had watched the same Hafei Motor sedans hold their distance behind the minivan for more than ten miles. The black cars were trading positions every few mile
s, but they weren’t driving aggressively. They were almost lazy and let any number of cars get between them and the embassy SUV. “No sirens. Always a good sign.” She was only half joking.

  “You won’t be able to come back here,” Jonathan said. “You know that.”

  “I know.” Kyra regretted not seeing more of the city, or the countryside for that matter—the Great Wall at least. There was so much history, and it would all be denied her now. Ironic, she thought. It made her feel like her rebellious walk on the streets had been justified. She hadn’t joined up to play tourist. She had always wanted to prowl the side streets and see the underbellies and dirty corners of the cities where the Agency would send her. She’d had to fight the MSS for it, but for one night, she had gotten a true taste of the real Beijing. She wanted more, always would, but what she’d seen felt good and that was something she hadn’t felt for a while. “I’ll survive.”

  “Good for you,” he said. Kyra turned to look at him, but Jonathan was staring out the car window at the skyline and she couldn’t see his face.

  Time to get serious, she thought. “When you get to the waiting area, don’t talk to Mitchell or Pioneer,” she advised. “They should be sitting apart. Try to keep some distance from both of them. If you have to sit near one of them, sit near Mitchell. Otherwise, let him find you when you deplane in Seoul.”

  “No problem.” Jonathan knew the practice perfectly well but nodded assent.

  “Monaghan is good,” Kyra said. “She does solid work. But if the MSS does pick either of them up, you just get on the plane, then call the embassy when you land.” The telephone number was scribbled on a blank index card in his wallet.

  “If that happens, Pioneer is dead,” Jonathan said. “And Mitchell goes to prison.”