by HN Wake
Initial contact has been suggested for Saturday, Wynn, Macau. Safe words, in sequence: green tea, gold. She did not confirm this scheduled meeting. Approach with caution.
- Beijing Station Chief, Woodall Ratner
The cable laid out an interestingly vague mission. Mac liked that. She also liked being a one-man team; it was clean, easy, and she was good at it. Like a professional athlete before a big match, she immediately began designing a game plan, anticipating the plays, and envisioning escape hatches.
She called Odom back. Her voice was strong, assured. “I need a passport. American. For Lui.”
“I’m not authorized to do that. And like I said, you need to cut ties if this goes south.”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling. Call our guy in Macau and get him working it up. If this goes south I need more than one way out. I may need to extract her quickly.”
Five minutes later, the heavy drumbeat of a Killers song bounced off the apartment’s concrete walls. Her neighbors would complain to management. Screw ’em. Most of the year she lived like a church mouse. She didn’t have any pets, almost never cooked, never had any visitors, and paid her rent in advance.
In the bedroom, she packed her courier bag with various clothes, sunglasses, wigs, SIM cards, batteries, a Taser, pepper spray, a Swiss Army knife, duct tape, zip ties, two passports, three burner phones, and her Agency Blackberry. She dressed in black.
In the bathroom, she grabbed the once-used towels off the bath rods and pushed them in the hamper.
In the living room, she put away the movies, straightened the magazine pile-Time on top, Vanity Fair on bottom-and watered the plants. Finally, she stood by the window and lit a cigarette. It occurred to her that if this op failed and the Agency sent a cleaning crew, they would find the spotless, compulsively immaculate home of a lonely individual. She stubbed out the cigarette, annoyed. In the kitchen, she splashed whiskey in the bottom of two glasses and set them on the counter next to the dirty ashtray. At least the world’s last impression of her wouldn’t be of a bleak, solitary recluse.
2
21:00
The hydrofoil ferry hurtled through the black night across the South China Sea toward the Macau Peninsula. Every now and then, the ferry rode a huge swell with an alarming dip followed by an exhilarating climb.
The last few months had been quiet. Forced on a break by Odom to calm frazzled nerves, she had sunk into the cover of the bank job: waking up early every morning, walking to work, settling into daily office tasks, taking a gym break at lunch, and stopping off at local restaurants for dinner. Once in a while she had met friends for happy hour, but mostly she had recuperated in quiet solitude.
Psychoanalysis would have helped, but she didn’t want the Agency to have any reason for a recall. Experts’ articles online made clear that her symptoms were standard for post-traumatic stress disorder, a result of holding too much internal anxiety without appropriate release. According to these articles, grit makes a person ‘strong.’ So in those quiet months she had concentrated on building back her resilience. Eventually, the time had lengthened between the anxiety spikes and the surges of staggering emotions at inappropriate times.
She felt better, stronger.
She was back on the job. She scanned the ferry passengers. A young, loud crowd near the bow buzzed in the excitement of gambling in the Sin City of the East, which had seven times the gambling revenue of Las Vegas. A few couples were scattered around the ferry. Ten solitary old-timers were heading off to the casinos to try their luck with their month’s pensions. Not a single person on the ferry looked to be on surveillance.
The reception desk of the Wynn Casino Macau occupied a place of distinction in front of a magnificent, black-tiled aquarium. Stage lights shot an eerie neon shimmer through the blue water, into hundreds of hypnotically pulsing jellyfish.
The gorgeous hotel receptionist looked up at a well-polished white woman with long, blonde hair and a bright pink overcoat. “How can I help you?”
Mac handed her an AmEx platinum card. “Checking in. Last name Woodman, first name Francesca.”
The receptionist smiled, typed in the name, and slipped a new key card into a machine that rattled. She wrote the number 502 on a paper sleeve and handed it to Mac. “Room 502. The elevators are to your right.”
The air in room 502 was cold and smelled like orchids. A beige leather sofa sat below a huge, flat-screen TV and across from a massive bed. The red-and-beige carpet was plush, new. A floor-to-ceiling window framed Macau’s casinos, glittering against the darkness.
Across the world, she had spent many hours in hotel rooms; everything about this room was extravagant. It made her feel as if she didn’t belong, as if she was an impostor.
She wondered, when do I ever not feel like an impostor? The thought stopped her in the moment. She began fishing memories for a time when she felt authentic, when she felt herself. On a beach, under a hot sun that beat out the darkness. Those times she felt free.
Shaking off the melancholy, she slid off the blonde wig and laid it across the bed. She dumped out the contents of the courier bag, quickly dressed in a white button-up shirt, black pants, and soft-soled work shoes. She slipped on a black wig and thick, black-framed glasses. She couldn’t pass for Asian, she was too tall, too athletic, but the Wynn employed many expat women. It added an exotic flair.
Down on the ground floor, Mac tracked around the external perimeter of the main casino hall. It was a breathtaking expanse of soft lighting under gold curtains and vivid patterns across red carpets. Rows of spotlit gaming tables and flashing slot machines stretched out endlessly. The air was syrupy with body odor, cheap perfume, and heavy smoke.
Along one stretch, zombie-like players dropped coins and pulled handles at the slots. The clanging of the machines competed with the soft Cantopop love songs. The machines rarely declared a winner; not even the people’s communism of China could win against the ultimate capitalist machine. She had heard the Sands Macau paid off its construction loans within a year of opening.
She followed the walkway around the far end and found her destination past the Starbucks. The staff elevators were discretely tucked in an alcove.
In the basement, the smell of clean laundry drifted down the white-tiled hallway. A series of closed doors with round portals ran its length. The first window offered a view of a factory-sized laundry room with rows of washers, dryers, and mesh baskets. The next window revealed a frenetic kitchen with shouting cooks, hustling waiters, and thrashing washers. Behind the third door was a massive mechanical room. Its ceiling was a complex system of colored piping and ductwork; its floor was a painted map of walkways; its far wall was a collection of gas canisters, floor-bound electrical boxes and towering boilers.
At the fourth door, she found the staff locker room. She cracked it open and listened. Empty. Slipping inside, she quickly checked lockers until she found a sparkly vest and matching bow tie. In an instant, she became a uniformed croupier for the Wynn, nearly invisible to any casino guest.
The Chinese government car with black tinted windows pulled up to the Wynn Macau lobby door. A hulking gorilla of a man disengaged himself from the front, passenger side and opened the back door. Fang Gaoli emerged. He was a tall, angular, older man with a wrinkled, worn face and gold, square glasses circa 1980. His lips were tight, thin and his pitch-black hair sliced across a high forehead in a pronounced sweep-over. He appeared older than Odom’s files had captured.
Fang offered his hand backward into the car and a woman reached out, thick gold bangles jangling on a thin wrist. Lily Lui emerged slowly, blinking in the light, a waif dressed in white and gray silk. She was far prettier than the photos in Odom’s file. Her long, incredibly shiny hair skimmed down to the small of her back. Bright red lips stood out prominently against sheer, pale skin. She was also far younger than her photos had revealed; their age difference must be at least forty years.
Lily took Fang’s elbow and accompanied him into the lobby, emanati
ng aloofness, haughtiness.
This is going to be interesting, thought Mac. She had never approached someone so young or so wealthy. And that conspicuous imperiousness may be a problem.
Gorilla ordered the bellhop to get the bags from the trunk and followed behind Fang and Lily.
From her position in the lobby, Mac used a burner phone to call Langley.
Odom picked up on the first ring, “Odom.”
“I’m at the Wynn. I’ve ID’d the target.”
“You’re a go to initiate contact.”
“Roger that.”
The huge, white door at the end of the long, silent hallway was framed by a massive arch and red, brocade curtains. Balancing a tray of water bottles across one arm, Mac pulled the gold handle to reveal a second, interior hallway lined with even more sweeping curtains. Noise emanated from the last room, the Wynn VIP gaming room Salon 1.
Inside, Salon 1 was a study in marble floors, silk-lined walls, and gleaming mirrors. Six Chinese men sat around a white-padded table in front of a dealer. Fang’s back was to the door. No one looked up at her entrance; they were deep in a poker game.
Lily sat by a side table, alone in grey taffeta, nursing a cocktail and gazing at a TV.
Mac walked to the side table, replaced the bottles, and picked up empty glasses. She stepped in front of Lily and laid a linen napkin across her lap. Startled, Lily glanced up, with an odd, distant look.
Mac winked.
Inside the bathroom, the air pressure changed slightly as the outside door to a small foyer opened. Mac’s adrenaline pulsed. She adjusted the shiny croupier vest, stepped to the sink, and began absently wiping. The interior bathroom door opened. High heels clicked, soft steps on marble tile.
Lily appeared in the mirror’s reflection. Her face had the striking symmetry of a China doll: bright-red bow lips sat below sharp cheekbones and wide-set eyes with feathered lashes, porcelain skin. She was tiny, an impossibly delicate infant bird. She was perfectly coifed with the look of a powerful man’s mistress. Mac wondered if she had undergone plastic surgery, all the rage in Shanghai.
Mac asked softly, “Madam, would you care for some green tea?”
Lily stared at Mac in the mirror for a long, silent moment. Too long. In that instant Mac recognized Lily’s stare: it wasn’t haughtiness, it was caution. This perfect woman had the same blank gaze as a poverty-stricken child, familiar with hunger, familiar with disappointment. Lily was trapped.
The game changed. This wasn’t a manipulative target; this was a target that wanted help.
Mac glanced up at the fish-eye camera, high on the bathroom wall, sending a warning that they were being watched. Lily acknowledged with a slight nod, a woman conversant with vigilance.
Mac turned, “You’ll excuse me, Madam. Staff aren’t supposed to be in the gold—,” the second safe word, then a pause. “—VIP rooms with hotel guests.”
Brushing past, Mac whispered in her ear, “I’m in Room 502. We can talk there.”
Despite the dim lighting, the cosmetic powder on Lily’s skin shimmered, a translucent glow.
Thirty minutes later, Lily stared out Room 502’s window into the crushing darkness, one hand against the cold glass. The air conditioner ruffled her gray dress. In the distance, the Old Bridge’s stage lights threw elongated flares across inky water, a spectral galleon going down in flames.
Lily spoke to the night, “I grew up in the country. There was grass, blue sky, clouds, animals. Pigs. Cows. Birds. I had OK childhood. Now all I see are skylines, man-made lines, square corners. Cold glass. Out the window of apartment in Beijing I see pollution. Everywhere. All around. It is dark, grey, heavy. We don’t get sunlight in Beijing. This cloud, this cloud of death, sits outside my window. It laughs at me in my prison on the top floor. No birds fly by my window. I don’t know what happened to the birds. Maybe they left.”
From across the room, Mac recognized the isolated, affected poise of someone who lived on a stage.
Lily continued, “I had no other choice but the Americans. You were only people I had…contact.” Her accent was nearly flawless, but her syntax was slightly off.
“We’re here to help,” Mac said softly.
“No. Not really. I understand this. You are here for information I have.” She lifted her hand off the window and watched the fog print dissipate.
“Can you tell me about it? The information you have?”
Lily turned, ignored the question, and spoke with a contemplative voice. “We Chinese, we know, that we are small pawn in larger game. We know we are nothing, fragment of time. Alive. Then dead.”
Once again Mac shifted her opinion of this slight woman. Lily wasn’t just trapped, she was drained.
As if reading her mind, Lily said calmly, “I’m not safe here, in this room.”
“Why do you think that?”
“They watch me. All the time. They will come for me soon.”
“The big one? The large man?”
“Yes. Most of the time, it is him. Sometimes it is the other.” She did not mention her lover’s name.
“Fang Gaoli?”
Lily winced. “Yes. But mostly, it is the big one.”
Gaoli scares her, Mac thought. She said, “I need to confirm your intelligence. We don’t have much time for me to arrange an offer.”
The blank gaze appeared again. “I am ever so aware of time.” A moment later, Lily asked, “What is your name?”
“Call me Mac.”
“Mac.” Lily softly clucked the ‘c’ on the back of her throat. “A short name. Very American. Does it have meaning?”
“No, not really. It’s just a name.” Mac coaxed, “Let me get you back to your suite.”
“Yes.” Once again, Lily got lost in thought. Her handbag vibrated. She blinked, took out her phone, and turned back to the window. Hushed, she responded, “Shi. Shi.” Yes, yes. Over and over. Long, perfect fingers splayed out against the cold glass, then slowly clenched, nails clawing against the hard surface.
Trapped and weary but not broken, thought Mac.
Lily disconnected, gathered herself, turned, and drifted toward the door. “He sends the bodyguard now. You should come to suite. In twenty minutes. The body guard—he comes, then goes.”
She left behind the hint of fine, dry talcum powder.
3
23:30
From the end of the hallway, Mac watched a waiter roll a white covered serving cart toward the penthouse suite. On top was a huge, dust-pink peony in a vase, a champagne glass, a wine bucket, and a covered plate. He knocked softly on the door.
Gorilla opened it and nodded the waiter in.
Not a very good bodyguard. The least he could do was look down the hall; it was the bare minimum of counter surveillance. But, an unobservant bodyguard worked in Mac’s favor.
Five minutes later, Gorilla and the waiter exited the suite and rode the elevator back down.
Mac breathed in deeply, shook out her arms. Odom better have gotten this right. She was headed into enemy territory. If Lily were a honey trap, they would all be whisked away. There would be no return trip down this hallway.
She knocked on the suite door.
The empty, well-lit suite was lavish with splashes of red and white silk, heavy gold brocade, and dramatic paintings. Indicating the white lounge chairs around the coffee table, Lily poured champagne into the flute for Mac and then into the remaining water glass for herself. She said, “We have time. They stay downstairs all night. He plays. All night.”
Lily sat with her back perfectly straight, her ankles crossed. They raised glasses in an awkward, silent toast.
Lily began her story, slowly. “Everything is warfare, Mac.” She again enunciated the ‘c’. “Traditional warfare. Economic warfare. Technological warfare. Biological warfare. They look at a lot of things with the lens of warfare. I don’t understand it all. I pay attention, but I don’t understand it all. How they can spend so much time, on this? It is all they think about. I
t changes them. It consumes them. Consumes, yes?” She searched for the right word.
Mac nodded, consume made sense.
Lily took another sip, changed the subject, finding her voice. “Everything is for the Party. Always we do things for the Party, for the country. It is our duty. Our obligation. But no more does country come first for them. It is easy to dictate to the rest of us that country comes first, but they get richer, own more, families get fatter. So rich. On display. We know. We, I mean little people. We know country does not come first for them. Greed comes first to Party.”
Mac waited patiently, taking small sips. Assets had to build trust in their own time. Particularly the cautious ones.
Lily stood and filled a glass with water from the cart. She gulped it in one fluid movement and poured herself another. Sitting back down she continued, “They meet, they have meetings. Discuss the Party. The future. I stand, as they shut the door, on the outside. But I can hear through the door. These meetings, they talk about the future. They have plans, future plans. They use the word dominate. Economic war. Dominance. Technological war. Dominance. All the time they use the same words. We outside, we watching them. We see the greed. The Party’s greed. We are small people, but we are not dumb people.
“Do you know about geckos, Mac?” she asked, changing the subject.
“As in the lizards?”
“Yes.”
“No. Not really,” Mac replied.
“They are the most unique living organism. They are heaviest organism that can hang, or stand, upside down. This happens easy for them.”
Mac remained silent, confused.
“They can do this because of nature. Because of own natural nanotechnology. Do you know what is nanotechnology?”
“A bit. Dealing with technology or systems at the dimension of a nano--a millionth of a meter?”