by John Gapper
Sedgwick shifted on the seat, arranging his legs around boxes of equipment. Lockhart had known him for thirty years, but he would have had trouble picking him from a lineup. Sedgwick’s mustache was turning white and he’d put on some weight, but he remained featureless—he sat in his London Fog raincoat, fading into the background like a hundred spies. Lockhart leaned forward, peering through the glass at the street. A rain shower had passed, and the leaves were glistening on the trees.
“Nothing yet,” he said.
“Maybe she’ll cancel,” Sedgwick said gloomily.
“She won’t. She never does.”
“You shouldn’t have let Margot go. She was good for you.”
“That was a long time ago, Al.”
“Yeah, but don’t you miss her?”
“Sometimes.” Lockhart looked at the squat green fire hydrant on the corner of the block. He remembered Lizzie walking past it in her brown wool coat, when she’d been three years old. They’d just bought a retriever puppy and she’d run up the street after it, squealing with laughter. “More now.”
“I’m sorry, Tom.” Sedgwick shuffled again. “God, who designed these seats? This is penance. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Five Our Fathers, four Hail Marys, and three hours’ surveillance.”
“It’s your operation, not mine.”
“Just the same as in the old days.”
“Yes, but I retired.”
“We don’t recognize that concept.”
“They’re moving,” the driver said.
Lockhart looked through the glass, then flattened himself against the side of the van. It was uncanny to see them together. Margot unlocked the car door as the girl waited on the other side. Mei wore one of Lizzie’s outfits—black pants and a green jacket—and she looked identical. What strange fantasy were the two of them living out? Margot had seemed almost healthy, nothing like the pale and exhausted figure of recent days. When he’d told her the truth about Lizzie, it was worse than when they’d separated—as if he’d broken her.
“What the hell is going on?”
“I honestly don’t know, Al.”
“Margot doesn’t hate you that much, does she?”
“She might,” Lockhart said grimly.
Margot’s Lexus started up the street and turned onto Magnolia Parkway, their van following three vehicles behind. They drove along Western Avenue, past the recreation center and into the heart of the village. The driver and the technician in the front looked unhurried, as if they did this every day. The rear of the van was packed, and there was hardly room to move. Sedgwick winced as they swung around the corners, as if feeling his age.
At Friendship Heights, Margot pulled into the underground parking lot by Neiman Marcus. Their driver kept going to the next block, turning into an open-air lot and finding a spot opposite Bloomingdale’s. The driver leaned back and retrieved a silver suitcase from Lockhart’s feet. He removed a squat telescope, plugging it into an electronic device nestled inside the case. Then he put on a pair of headphones, opened his window a shade and sighted the Capital Grille through the scope. As he did, Margot and Mei emerged from the lot, crossing the road into the restaurant.
“They’ll be sitting near the window,” Sedgwick said.
“How did you fix that?” Lockhart said.
“We tip well.”
Soon the women appeared at the window and sat at a table, taking menus from the waiter. Margot glanced at hers briefly and set it down, leaning forward to talk.
“Is this Mandarin?” The driver gave the headphones to Sedgwick and he held one pad to his ear.
“Sounds like Martian.”
He handed them to Lockhart, who put them on. It was like listening to a crowd inside an echo chamber if the sound were passed through soup. He heard scraps of Margot’s voice, but her words were mostly lost.
“Is this the best we can do?” Sedgwick said.
The driver shrugged, whispering with the technician over the controls. They tried for another few minutes but it was useless. Eventually, Sedgwick passed the headphones to the front and climbed out of the van on the blind side of the restaurant to catch some air. Lockhart joined him, wanting a cigarette. They stood silently, looking around the streets until, after twenty minutes, the drive spoke.
“Movement.” The driver had taken out a pair of binoculars and was gazing at the restaurant. “One’s up, the other’s at the table. She’s going somewhere, can’t see.”
“Bathroom break,” Sedgwick said. “Which one?”
“Mrs. Lockhart.”
“Ready, Tom?”
“Let’s go,” Lockhart said.
He followed Sedgwick onto the sidewalk and across Western Avenue to the restaurant. They went up the stone steps to the side and entered the establishment through the main door. It was dark, with wood paneling and dimmed Art Deco lights, but he saw her at the end of a row of banquettes as clearly as if she were his daughter, sitting alone. Sedgwick waved aside a waiter, and they walked to the table.
“Hello, Song Mei,” Lockhart said, sitting in Margot’s seat. He had only a minute or two before Margot returned and things became complicated. He wanted to finish the task by then.
Mei looked up, startled. She seemed gentler in Lizzie’s outfit, without her suit and the wariness with which she’d entered the VIP room at the Golden Dragon. Her plate of tuna and rice had hardly been touched, and her glass of white wine was still full. She said nothing.
“This is Alan Sedgwick, with the CIA. We need you to come with us now, Mei. We have to leave.”
“Mr. Lockhart.” She stared at him, not moving.
“Come on, Ms. Song.” Sedgwick put his hand on her arm to try to lead her, but she pulled it free.
“Why are you here?” she asked Lockhart.
“The question is, why you’re here,” Sedgwick said. “You entered the U.S. under a false passport.”
From the corner of his eye, Lockhart spotted Margot making her way back to the table, along the line of banquettes. He turned to face her, holding both his hands up, as if in surrender. She saw them from a few tables away, and her face narrowed in incredulity and disgust.
“Hello, Margot,” Sedgwick said.
“Nice to see you, Al.” To Lockhart, from years of marital experience, she sounded dangerously calm.
“Just some agency business. Ms. Song is coming to help us. I’m sorry we have to interrupt.”
“We’re having dinner. Can’t this wait?”
“Do you know who this woman is?”
“It’s the first time we’ve met, in fact. Tom never mentioned her to me, Al. Does that surprise you?”
Lockhart stepped forward. “Margie, let’s talk about this—”
“Keep your hands off me,” she growled, and the maître d’ glanced over from the other side of the room. The men from the van were at the bar, nursing glasses of beer.
“You realize who she is?” Sedgwick said.
“I think it’s rather obvious, isn’t it?”
“I meant what her job is.”
“She was telling me when you interrupted. I’d like to get back to our meal. We’re catching up on things.”
“You know she’s traveling on Lizzie’s passport?”
“Is she?” She turned to Mei. “Is that true?”
Mei nodded, and Margot laughed. “God, that’s just the sort of stunt she would have pulled.”
“Let me do my job, Margot,” Sedgwick said. “I have to take her now. This is a matter of national security.”
Margot sighed. “It always is. Okay, do what you have to do. I’m used to it. Mei?” Mei stood awkwardly and Margot embraced her. “I’ll see you again, okay? Thanks for finding me.”
“Great,” Sedgwick said. “I’ll leave Tom here. You two can have a talk. He’ll explain. Guys?” He walked with Mei to the bar, and the van pair escorted her out of the room.
Margot sat and pushed her plate to one side, while Lockhart took Mei’s place opposite. “I’m
sorry, Margie,” he said.
She glared at him. “You’re sorry? Did this slip your mind? The fact that Lizzie had a twin? I should add it to the list, should I? I’m waiting, Tom, for a reason ever to speak to you again.”
Lockhart could still picture Margot’s face from the first time they’d met, when he had found her in the corner at an embassy event, getting quietly drunk. She had a few more lines but the same eyes. He’d betrayed her and she’d been angry with him many times. But even separated, amid tragedy, she was the woman he’d loved.
“I’ll try,” he said, beckoning the waiter.
When Mei woke, she was in a cell. She was wearing a gray jumpsuit, and she lay in bed. It felt as if she had lost consciousness for a long time and had woken from a dreamless sleep. She blinked and looked around, turning her neck to take in her room. The cell was nine feet by fifteen and was painted light gray with a concrete floor. An aluminum toilet and basin fixed to the wall in one corner provided the only contrast to the blankness of the box. She could have stood against any of the walls and blended in like a chameleon.
She blinked again. The air was dry, like the air in a sauna, and her eyes felt scratchy. It was coming through vents fixed around the walls near the floor. The door looked airtight, and the single window—a narrow slot about three feet long and not quite two feet high—was double-glazed and fixed flush with the wall, high up. It felt like being in a Mason jar, put away for storage. She could hear a faint hiss as the air was circulated into the cell and out again. The window was frosted, and the only other light came from a single diode in the ceiling.
A tray was thrust through a slot in the door with a clang, and she twisted around to see. It hung in midair and she heard nothing from the other side of the door. She put her feet on the floor, which felt warm under her soles, and walked over to take it. There was nowhere to sit apart from the bed, and she perched it on her knees, prodding dubiously. The meal looked as hermetically sealed as the room—two tepid and rubbery pancakes, a little tub of maple syrup, a pat of butter in foil, a plastic knife, a container of orange juice, and a cup of pitch-black coffee.
She remembered driving at night, in a convoy of two Escalades, through the lights of Washington and out over a bridge into darkness—suburbs and woods, then a highway, then an expressway. She saw little through the tinted windows, and the two CIA keepers in the front hardly spoke. There was only the faint crackle of a radio, then, some time after midnight, the moan of country music. She had slipped into a doze as they passed highways, sometimes bumping across the meridians on rough tarmac. It was a low-key, efficient journey, with none of the high-speed drama of Guangdong.
It was impossible to tell the time—her watch had been removed, and there was an unchanging light from the window. When she’d eaten what she could of the breakfast and washed her face in the basin, she lay down and stared at the ceiling. Her last glimpse of Lockhart had been through the windows of the Capital Grille, as she’d sat in the Escalade, waiting for the other car to arrive for the journey. She’d watched him sitting with Margot, talking.
A couple of hours seemed to have passed and the light had faded a little when the door opened. A guard came to take her, leading her along a low corridor with his head just inches from the ceiling. He put her in another cell, at a table with two chairs, and left again. There was nothing in it but the furniture and a matte panel on one wall. After a while, the man she’d seen with Lockhart entered and sat opposite. He looked tired, not just of Mei, but of the whole thing, as if she’d just been expelled from an expensive college. He put a file on the desk, unopened.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
“You brought me.”
“Don’t be clever, Ms. Song. You came into this country two days ago, on a U.S. citizen’s passport, and broke into a private home. You work for a government agency in China associated with the Communist Party. Right there, there’s enough to detain you for espionage and keep you inside for a very long time. Even if they wanted you back, we’d demand a higher price than they’d pay. So you don’t have much on your side, except my goodwill, which has been strained by the games you’ve played with a bereaved woman who’s my friend.”
Margot’s not your friend, Mei thought.
“Shall we start again?” Sedgwick said.
Mei nodded.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came here to see Margot Lockhart, the mother of my adopted sister. I want to go back to her.”
Mei had spent the previous night in Lizzie’s bed. After they’d talked, Margot had fetched her some towels and a pair of her daughter’s pajamas. They fit exactly, and she lay there, warm and comfortable for the first time in days, looking at the paintings on the walls and a photograph of Lizzie playing soccer for her school, surrounded by her friends. It had been her parallel life, on the far side of the world.
Sedgwick’s expression of vague irritation hardened into something more specific. “Well, that’s not possible, is it, Ms. Song? I don’t think Margot wants to take a murder suspect into her home. The authorities in Guangdong have placed an alert for you on their borders for the killing of”—he paused to consult the file—“Zhang Yao. That means you’ve committed felonies on two continents, and you belong in jail. You can stay in this one, or we can return you, in which case your life will get worse.”
“I don’t want to go back,” Mei said.
“Then you’d better think of a way to help us,” Sedgwick said, picking up the file and leaving.
Two days and nights passed before she saw Sedgwick again. Life slowed to a trickle in her cell. It became a kind of torture, just existing, sometimes using the toilet or putting water on her face, lying down and watching the ceiling, trying and failing to see something through the window. They didn’t play loud music or waterboard her. They left her alone.
At dusk, the window darkened, but the rest of the cell remained identical—the same color, the same temperature, the same slight hissing sound. The light turned off later and came on again at dawn, taking its lead from nature but adding little. She slept in fitful bursts, dreamed lurid dreams—a rail journey through red hills, a luminous cavern, the sea beyond the river, black as night.
“What have you got for me?” Sedgwick said. He looked as disenchanted with her as before.
“I can’t think of anything.” It was true. After so long alone, it felt as if her brain had ceased working.
“Tell me about this man,” Sedgwick took a photo from the file and turned it on the table between his fingertips so that it faced her. It was a grainy image of the Wolf, taken from across a street in Guangzhou, near the PLA headquarters. It looked a few years old.
“This is Lang Xiaobo, secretary of the Guangdong Discipline Commission.”
“Known as the Wolf. Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
He stared at her and put the photo back into the file, then got up from the seat, as if to leave. She couldn’t let him depart—she feared another two days of gray isolation.
“He was arrested,” Mei said. “I saw him once—I was taken to see him. He was in a military base somewhere.”
“In Guangdong?”
“I think so.”
“Tell me about your sister.”
“Secretary Lang brought me to the place where she died, near Dongguan. I saw her body. It looked as if she’d drowned.”
Sedgwick sighed. “The problem is, I already know these things, and I know more than you’ve told me. She worked at Long Tan and she wasn’t the only one to die. Twenty others have too. We know that he was investigating and that you helped him. Now, he is in shuanggui, and so would you be if you had not killed the man they sent to fetch you. None of this is hard to discover.”
“If you know it all, what do you want from me?”
“Make me an offer,” Sedgwick said, leaving.
When Lockhart came, they let her outside. The guard gave her a pair of boots and a jacket and led her through the
hallway to the end of the block, where he opened a door and she saw the sky. It was like the lid of a box had been removed, letting light flood in. He stood thirty feet away, on an expanse of green lawn, waiting for her to adjust to the glare.
“Come on, let’s walk,” he said.
It was a bright fall day. The sun was high in the sky, glinting off the foliage on the birch forest that stretched around them on all sides. She looked at her prison. It was a low block, finished in cedar wood and shingle, like a summer house without windows, at the edge of a wide lawn that led into the trees. It didn’t look threatening.
“Where are we?” she said.
“Virginia. Camp Peary.”
Her legs felt shaky from lack of exercise, and he slowed to let her catch up to him as they walked toward the woods. The lawn was mown, and the path between the trees was cut precisely and strewn with wood chips, maintained with rigor. The undergrowth had been cleared, leaving a yellow and brown carpet of fall leaves amid the trunks. They walked down a slope past a tennis court; the path ended at a lake. There was no one in sight, but Mei heard a faint echo of vehicles, as from another territory.
“How do you feel?” Lockhart asked.
Mei shrugged. They reached the edge of the lake and stood by the water. Two canoes rested on the shore, overturned for shelter. There weren’t any boats on the water, only a view of trees.
The answer was: She was lost. No matter how imperfect her sister’s life and its brutal end, she’d gained parents, family, identity. Mei was stateless and rootless, a child alone. She was in shuanggui, locked away anonymously beyond the reach of law, and it was oddly familiar. As a child, she’d been dumped in an orphanage, a nonperson in a nonplace.
Now, she was there again.
Lockhart returned the next day, and the guard gave her a raincoat to walk with him. He was in the same place on the lawn, water dripping off the hood of his jacket and his hands in his pockets. She’d been awake most of the night, wondering if she’d ever get out. When she walked up, he offered her an awkward hug, their coats rustling together. His face was pale, and it didn’t look as if he had shaved that morning. They made a fine pair, she thought.