The Thought Cathedral

by Nathan Williams

Leonard: Thanks. Will do.

  Abrams: Everything else okay? How’s Sun’s recon?

  For the past few weeks, Shi Sun had placed very loose surveillance on Leonard but, as far as Leonard could tell, it was only during daylight hours. It wasn’t causing any issues for him at this point in terms of meeting with his other agents, but it was a nuisance and heightened his apprehension toward his and Ricardo’s relationship with Sun International.

  Leonard: Very loose, but I don’t get why he’s doing it. I have no reason to think Sun suspects my involvement with the U.S. government, but I’m very wary. No real changes since we spoke last week. It’s not causing any issues meeting with other agents at this point.

  Abrams: Very well. Let me know pronto if anything changes. Great job with the Liu sisters and good luck with the Mu lead.

  Leonard: Thanks.

  Leonard saw Abrams disconnect from the IM screen. He grabbed his cycle, threw on his backpack, and headed out the door.

  Beijing, China

  Wednesday, December 31, 7:06 p.m. Chinese Standard Time

  Small white flakes of snow fell gently from the gray sky as Leonard holstered his Glock 22, stepped out of Hirsch’s sedan, and followed behind Hirsch as they crossed a thin, dirt road lined with single-story shanties constructed with wooden frames. A few of the structures had thin pipes soldered into the tin roofs with plumes of smoke billowing out. Two elderly men with cracked, age-worn skin and dressed in layered rags were huddled around a metal bin. The orange and red flames in the bin licked at their gnarled, bandaged hands.

  “What are we looking for?” Hirsch asked.

  Leonard had forgotten that Min Liu hadn’t included Hirsch in her encrypted text.

  “A small little Tibetan restaurant called Lu Lok’s Place. Supposed to be right on this street.”

  Leonard dashed over to the two old men by the bin and inquired with the taller of the two. The man’s clothing hung loose over his emaciated frame, his sallow skin taut against his cheekbones. He spoke with a slight lisp, and Leonard struggled to comprehend his words. Leonard wasn’t sure if it was a whole new dialect he’d never heard before, or if the man was simply not altogether there. With great effort and heavy use of hand gestures, Leonard was finally able to discern that a man named Lu Lok lived two blocks further down on the opposite side of the street.

  Two blocks later, they discovered a structure constructed with the same homogenous style and materials as all the others, except that it had LU LOK painted in red, yellow, and blue on the front window. As the sun was setting, it had grown cold outside and Leonard gratefully noted a plume of smoke curling up from a makeshift metal chimney at the center of the roof. Hirsch led them through a door made of dark brown wood with a multicolored bamboo trinket and some bells attached and hanging down at eye level. The bells jostled merrily as they entered the cafe.

  The interior was dimly lit, and he felt the warmth of the air as soon as he slipped through the door. The source of the heat was a log fire burning in a pit that had been dug into the center of the room. Leonard noticed a metal chute extending down from ceiling, which provided an escape route for the smoke, as well as a makeshift smoke shelf and damper for preventing down-drafts and any rain from entering.

  Other than the central fire, the remainder of the light came from the small flames of candles that had been placed on the few tables situated around the perimeter of the room. It took a few moments for Leonard’s eyes to adjust, but a few moments later he noticed Min Liu seated at the table furthest from the front entrance, the whites of her eyes bright against the amber shadows. Her smooth, round face flashed in and out of focus intermittently in the flickering light.

  Liu remained seated at the table, studying them with a steady, intense gaze as they approached.

  Leonard nodded at Liu as he arrived at her table. “Hello, Min.”

  Min nodded, but remained silent as Leonard slid onto a small wooden chair on the opposite side of the little table. Min gave another slight nod to greet Hirsch as he pulled a chair from an adjacent table and sat next to Leonard.

  “How have things been, Ms. Liu?” Hirsch asked.

  “Just the same as always.”

  “May I call you Min?”

  She nodded in the affirmative. “That’s okay.”

  “Thank you. Please call me Xavier.”

  “And you can call me Joe,” Leonard added.

  “It’s always very cold in the winter here in Beijing,” Hirsch said, after a moment of awkward silence.

  “Yes, it is always cold everywhere.” Min said. “At my work and at home. But you learn to manage it.”

  Min was as intense now as she’d been five weeks prior when they’d met to discuss her optics. Without Jiang present, small talk seemed painfully difficult to come by. Hirsch seemed to perceive this, so he got right to the point.

  “I have your glasses.”

  Hirsch pulled a black silk sleeve out of the pocket inside the lining of his winter coat. He pushed a small pin set within a black fastener and drew out the cord that had been used to close the sleeve. He then pulled an indigo blue flip case containing the glasses out of the sleeve and laid it down on the table in front of Min.

  An elderly man, who Leonard assumed was the owner, approached them to take their food order. All three declined food for the time being.

  “Go ahead and open it up,” Hirsch said after the man had left.

  Min flipped it open and pulled the glasses out of the case. Her eyes widened a bit as she pulled the glasses off of her face. She held them together to compare the two.

  “It’s almost a perfect replica,” Min said. She glanced at Hirsch. “How do they work?”

  “Go ahead and put them on,” Hirsch said. Min slipped the CIA-designed glasses on.

  “The glasses are designed to work without you having to use your hands at all. Do you see the red light in the upper left corner?”

  Min nodded. “Yes, I see it.”

  “Good. Now all you need to do is look at the object you want to take the photo of and double-blink. The first time you double-blink, the camera in the lenses focuses in on the object. Once it’s focused, the red light will turn green and then you just double-blink again to take the picture.”

  Min was looking at Hirsch, attempting to take his photo. She double-blinked twice and snapped it.

  “You see how, after the photo is taken, the photo freezes for a few seconds?”

  Min nodded. “Yes, I see it.”

  “That gives you time to view the photo and check it over. After five seconds, it disappears from view, but it is stored in the memory drive.”

  Min asked, “Where’s the memory drive? In the frame?”

  “That’s correct,” Hirsch said. He continued, “I just want to verify with you what you told us in our last meeting when you gave us the specs for your glasses.”

  “Verify what?” Min asked.

  “You said that the lighting at your work is pretty good? It’s like a typical office?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hirsch.”

  Leonard noted how she seemed to always revert back to their surnames. He speculated that it must be her military background.

  “The lighting is okay. I think the glasses should work fine.”

  “Excellent,” Hirsch said. “You can take photos of your computer screen as well. You might have to lean in just a bit, but the photos should turn out fine.”

  “How do I get the photos to you?”

  “You’ll be meeting every few days with Joe,” Hirsch said. “Joe can download the photos to his computer.”

  Min glanced at Leonard. Her stare was intense. He knew she was examining him in the smallest of detail, searching for any trace of weakness. In that moment, Leonard felt the heavy burden of trust that Min was placing in him. It was this way with all of his agents.

  “How do I know when and where we will meet?”

  Leonard pulled a slip of paper from his coat pocket and slid it forward in front of Liu. Leonard sai
d, “The paper contains a list of locations in Beijing, each with its own four-digit code.” He let Liu look it over. “There’s a migrant wall very close to your apartment, just a block off of Mafang Road.”

  Liu’s expression changed to one of confusion. “Migrant wall?”

  “Yes, I’m referring to one of the migrant walls with the phone numbers on it. Do you know what I’m referring to?”

  In recent years, thousands of migrants had come in waves to Beijing from the countryside in pursuit of better jobs. To help their relatives find them once they arrived in Beijing, these migrants had turned a number of flat asphalt surfaces—anything from an abandoned billboard to a bridge underpass—into impromptu telephone directories.

  Liu’s expression lightened. “Yes, I do know what you’re referring to. There’s one of those just about two blocks from our home.”

  “Yes, that one,” Leonard said. “You’re going to always look for the number starting with the 610 area code. The last four numbers will always match to one of the locations on the list I’ve given you. Understand?”

  “Yes, Mr. Leonard. I understand.”

  “You should never ever have this list anywhere near your work place or any other government facility,” Leonard said. “In fact, it would be best if you can memorize the list and the matching numbers as soon as you can and burn this paper copy.”

  They fell silent for a few moments. Leonard watched an elderly man and woman rise from one of the tables and move toward the exit.

  “I’d like to ask a few more questions about the Ministry of State Security,” Hirsch said.

  Min nodded.

  “You mentioned in our first meeting that the MSS is divided into twelve bureaus? Is that correct?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hirsch, that’s correct.”

  “And you work for which bureau?”

  Min frowned. “I work for the 2nd Bureau.”

  “How is the 2nd Bureau different than the other bureaus?”

  “As I mentioned previously, Mr. Hirsch, the 2nd Bureau is responsible for the collection of foreign intelligence. That includes the use of overseas agents and the recruitment of spies.”

  Hirsch continued, “And you work at the MSS building located here in Beijing, next to the old Foreign Legation?”

  Min didn’t answer immediately. She let her eyes roam around the room for a few seconds. She seemed frustrated.

  “Mr. Hirsch, I don’t understand why you’re asking me all the same questions as in our first meeting. Do you have any new questions for me?”

  Hirsch had asked Min the same questions in the previous meeting a little over a month ago when Min had given them the specs for her glasses. That meeting had been very interesting for multiple reasons. Min had told them previously that she currently did not do her work at the main building but, rather, in a nondescript commercial building located a few blocks away. She’d also, surprisingly and rather suddenly, volunteered that some of the documents she’d reviewed there were from Brooklyn Venture Capital, a subsidiary of Brooklyn Capital Management. When Hirsch had asked her if she could provide verification of this, she’d confirmed without hesitation that she could. She’d even given them a couple of names of people she said were employees for Brooklyn Capital, names that were showing up in the documents she was translating. This was, Hirsch admitted, cause for great alarm and Hirsch had immediately sent this knowledge up the chain-of-command.

  With respect to Hirsch’s questions, the purpose of asking them a second time was to verify the accuracy of her initial responses. Hirsch seemed to soften his approach after the irritable tone in Min’s response.

  “Yes, of course, Ms. Liu. I just want to quickly confirm what you told us in our last meeting. You had said that the building you work in is like a typical office building with military guards at each entrance?”

  “That’s correct, Mr. Hirsch.”

  “And you work on laptop computers in small cubicles.”

  “Yes, all that is also correct. We work in small cubicles on the third and fourth levels. There are more guards at the entrance up to the third and fourth floors.”

  “Can you tell us anything else about the security procedures there?”

  “We have standard uniforms we wear,” Min said. “There’s a changing room we go to on level two.”

  “Where do you put your clothes?”

  “We have lockers.”

  “Are you able to take anything in with you?”

  “No. Nothing. But we can take eyewear or anything we may need for health reasons.”

  Leonard watched Hirsch scribbling notes on a small notepad.

  “You’re certain there will be enough light to get good photos?”

  Min thought for a moment. “Yes, I believe so. The analysis rooms are dimly lit, but there are lights in each of the cubicles. I can adjust the lighting if I need to. The computer monitors are quite bright by themselves.”

  “What are the analysis rooms like, other than the lighting?”

  Min frowned again. She seemed uncertain how to respond.

  “Are they carpeted?” Hirsch asked.

  “Yes, thin carpeting.”

  “How many cubicles are on each level?”

  Min’s eyes roamed to the ceiling as she counted in her head. It reminded Leonard of Min’s sister, Jiang, who had the same quirk.

  “There are just rows of cubicles. I think maybe about thirty-five to forty cubicles in a row. On level three, which is where I work, there are five rows.”

  “The cubicles must be small. How wide are they?” Hirsch asked.

  “Not much wider than this table.”

  Leonard studied the little table. He estimated it to be about four feet wide.

  Hirsch prodded her for more detail. “How much wider?”

  Min floated her left hand about twelve inches from the edge. “About this much bigger.”

  “That’s pretty small,” Hirsch said.

  Min shrugged. “We really don’t need much space. We use the computer for everything.”

  Hirsch asked her a few more general questions about the analysis rooms. Min revealed that they had portraits of the requisite Chinese past and present leadership hung on the walls, that armed guards quietly roamed the aisles between the cubicles at all hours, and that they ate in a cafeteria on the second level during designated lunch hours. Leonard filed Min’s answers away in his memory.

  When they finished the meeting, Min expressed concern about getting the glasses through the sensors at the security checkpoints at the front of the building, and again leading up to the third level. Hirsch assured her that there would be no issue, although Leonard knew he had no way of knowing for sure. They’d know soon enough, assuming Min followed through.

  New York City

  Friday, January 2, 7:23 a.m. EST

  Lyn Lee slid into her temporary desk in the dark basement. Thursday had been long and tedious with filling out the extensive paperwork required for the background investigation. She’d gone to the FBI Headquarters building in Manhattan to complete the paperwork and a polygraph examination and to meet again with Agents Frank and Reardon. They’d also given her an FBI-issued laptop. She’d also had to work with computer technicians in the green room to complete a full body scan for her portal avatar.

  After logging in to her email account, she found an email from Janak Patel confirming his signing off on her new project and letting her know that the “powers that be” had cleared her to begin. Lee then booted up the FBI-issued laptop where she found another email from Agent Frank confirming she’d passed all the required hurdles and that she had a security clearance. I have security clearance with the FBI. Guess I can check that off of my bucket list.

  Lee grabbed her FBI laptop, slid it into its case, and slung it around her torso. She left the temporary office and entered a dreary basement hallway. Her dress shoes clicked against the shiny asphalt floor and, while there were intermittent lights, there were no ceiling panels, leaving parts of the electrical a
nd ventilation systems exposed. She passed by the elevator from which she’d just descended. When she reached the end, she turned left, following the hallway along the north facing side of the building. Halfway down the length of the hall, she passed by the green room where a rep at Brooklyn had scanned her for her avatar the day prior. Just now, however, she kept going and entered into another adjacent, non-descript room with a tiled floor and plain white paint. It was pitch black in the room when she entered, but she’d been in the room many times previously and knew just where the light switch was. She flipped the switch, and the room was illuminated.

  The room contained a computer workstation, a walking track, and head-up-display, or HUD. Hanging on a hook on the wall was a fishnet cloak with sensors on it. Lee grabbed the cloak and carefully slid it over her torso. The portal as a whole was state-of-the-art, and Brooklyn Capital had spent millions of dollars on the project. The walking track and HUD provided a complete 3-dimensional virtual reality experience, including stereo sound. Lee had already spent many hours operating in the portal with this equipment in order to help test the development, so the mechanics of its use were already second nature for her. However, she’d never been in the portal as a Help Sponsor.

  After turning the portal on, Lee fitted the HUD on her head. Nothing but blackness appeared in her vision until the portal whirred to life. Then, suddenly, an explosion of bright color as the headset turned into a startling 3-D window into Brooklyn’s digital universe—the “cogitatio cathedrali”—Latin for “thought cathedral.” She was standing in a grand courtyard, which served as the landing pad, or nexus, for all avatars entering into the cathedral. The courtyard, similar to the real-life building Lee worked in, had massive columns scattered about, each rising to the vaulted ceiling and terminating in its own intricately designed dome. Massive stained-glass windows surrounded the room, spilling colored light throughout the courtyard. Classical music played softly through the speakers. The music was coming from a performer playing on a grand piano situated in one corner of the huge room. The piano player was a digital version of Tchaikovsky himself playing his popular and dramatic 1st Piano Concerto.