The Ghost Shift

by John Gapper

  “Can’t you work out the private keys from the public key?” Mei was no cryptographer, but she had factored numbers.

  “That’s the clever part of it. The computers use two very large prime numbers for the private keys and it’s extremely hard to factor large primes. It’s impossible, actually, unless you have a very powerful computer and a lot of time—months, perhaps years. As long as you use random prime numbers, it’s safe. The only thing is, they must be random. If someone knows one of them, or even what it might be, they can unscramble the public key and your message. They can unlock everything.”

  “And this has something to do with the chip?”

  “The encryption is built into the master chip. It generates random primes to create the public key. But if the chip has a security flaw and selects numbers that appear random but actually aren’t, the encryption is breakable. That’s what they call a trapdoor. If somebody has fixed the chip, they can factor the public key easily. It means that nothing on the device is safe. No emails, no documents, nothing. That’s what they’ve done with these tablets. They can read everything on them, anytime they like.”

  “You might as well put your emails on a poster and hang it in Tiananmen Square for the tourists,” Lockhart said. “It’s cute. You’re sent your tablet, wrapped in its original box. You think it’s okay because it’s come straight from the factory. It can’t have been tampered with. But they fixed the factory. Think about it. The ability to know everything that was being said in Zhongnanhai or the West Wing. That would be worth plenty. Worth building a ghost factory for.”

  Mei thought of the tablets being packed in boxes, ready to be loaded onto the trucks outside P-1. “Where have they gone?”

  “They were gifts to officials, sent anonymously with compliments from Poppy,” said Feng. “We’ve found sixteen with Politburo members, six with the Politburo standing committee, five with PLA generals. Those are the ones we’ve retrieved, but there’s a list of others. It’s spreading.”

  “They’ve sent some to the U.S. now,” Lockhart said. “To the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA. The U.S. ambassador to Berlin got one last week. Everyone wants the latest Poppy tablet, and they don’t ask questions.”

  “Let’s take a walk,” Feng said.

  She led Mei and Lockhart down the stone steps to the exit and walked a hundred yards along the driveway. They stood by a slope covered in trees and bushes, with a set of steel stairs leading down fifty feet to a platform underneath the driveway. Feng descended, holding the handrail, and they followed. They passed knotted banyan trees and ficuses, leaning out over the gorge but rooted on the hillside.

  “All the utilities come down here. It’s remarkable,” Feng said.

  “Great infrastructure.” Lockhart said.

  They halted on the platform, the endpoint for the staircases that reached down into the gorge from the rear of the other properties. In front of them stood a padlocked metal gate with a turquoise sign reading No Unauthorized Entry. It would be easy to ignore the gate and slip over the handrails, Lockhart thought. The path beyond it led through greenery to a property commanding the hillside—a white stucco villa behind a balustrade, half shielded by palm trees.

  “That’s Cao Fu’s house,” Feng said.

  Mei stepped onto Deep Water Bay Road, wearing a Gucci dress in pink with a dahlia print she’d taken from the closet. Viscose clung to her hips, and the racer back exposed her shoulders. In her twenty-three years, it was the most glamorous thing she’d ever worn.

  A mistress’s wardrobe rather than a wife’s, she’d thought as she’d rippled her fingers along the clothes, trying to picture their owner. She was as tall as Mei and had a similar figure. All the hemlines were short, and the shoes stacked in boxes all had high heels. Mei had taken a glossy pink pair to go with the dress and a matching wallet. The owner didn’t do casual. She seemed to spend most of her time going out at night, looking pretty. It wasn’t easy to walk in the shoes, which were half a size too big. Mei fastened the ankle strap tightly, ignoring her bruises. Her heels broke the night’s silence.

  She buzzed the entry phone at Cao’s property, stirring a guard from his post. The man opened the gate, looking at her appreciatively, and Mei smiled brightly.

  “I’m here to see Cao Fu.”

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “I know him well. My name is Jiang Jia.”

  “Wait here.”

  The guard strolled up the driveway, and she looked at the front of the house. Two black Mercedes were parked near the door, a driver waiting in one. She couldn’t see guards, except for the one who was now walking back toward her. He opened the gate to admit her, then led her to the front door. A maid took her into the hallway, where a middle-aged woman stood, bristling with suspicion.

  “What do you want? My husband is busy.”

  The woman was dressed in a silk tunic and pants and had a beautiful face—a fine nose and high cheekbones. She’d reached an age at which she didn’t display her legs the way she had done once, and she regarded the pink dress as if Mei were wearing explosives.

  “I have to speak to him.”

  “You must leave. Now.”

  A mahogany door opened onto the hall, and Cao appeared behind his wife in a smoking jacket.

  “I’ll handle this.”

  His wife whipped around to face him, pointing a finger. “You told me—”

  “I said I’d handle it. You—” The guard stiffened. “Come.”

  Cao’s study was large and comfortably arranged. Aside from his mahogany desk, it held three sofas, and shelves weighted with books, ornaments, and photographs of him with Hong Kong celebrities and mainland politicians. In one, a young Cao stood by Deng Xiaoping, showing the Great Leader a crude production line in a small factory. It sat on the desk, by a panorama of the concourse at Long Tan, lined with workers applauding. Sliding doors looked onto the monumental terrace.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, Miss Lockhart.” He sat on one sofa and gestured at her to put herself opposite. The guard, who had halted inside the door, was doing his best impression of a statue.

  “You thought I was dead?”

  “I wasn’t sure. You brought an army with you.”

  “It wasn’t my army.”

  “And this time? Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re brave. Naive and reckless, like many Americans, but brave, I admit that. What do you want?”

  Mei opened her wallet and brought out the old Long Tan card with Lizzie’s photo on it.

  “You said I was familiar. Look at this badge. It belonged to a woman called Tang Liu, and it was found in a field in Dongguan. Your thugs killed her a month ago, and they left it there. That was stupid of them.”

  Cao stared at the badge and scrutinized Mei. “So, you make a habit of coming back from the dead,” he said.

  Lockhart grasped the pipe forming the handrail to the steps and pulled himself under. He wore a tracksuit and sneakers and carried a canvas bag. Above, Cao’s house looked like a wedding cake, set on the glowing terrace. Lockhart stood under a banyan tree, watching for activity. After five minutes, a guard walked along the terrace, gazing across the valley from the balustrade.

  Lockhart ran up the steps while the guard was still at the far side of the terrace, pausing by the top. When he raised his head, his eyes were at ground level between two pillars, and he saw across the terrace to the guard. The man stopped to light a cigarette and walked back, first crossing the terrace, then turning back toward the house. Lockhart took a syringe, holding it in his fist with his thumb on the plunger, and waited. The man drew on the cigarette as his left leg passed Lockhart’s nose.

  Reaching up, Lockhart thrust it deep into the man’s thigh, through his uniform pants, as his lungs took a last shot of nicotine. He spluttered, ejecting the cigarette like a missile, and dropped to the ground. Lockhart swung himself over the ledge and sat on the body. After a couple of seconds, feeling no movement,
he rolled off, lifting the gun from his bag and crouching by the side of the terrace. He was in shadow, and he had a clear view through the glass doors into Cao’s study. One of them was ajar, and he ran directly for it, afraid of stopping in case another guard appeared.

  He had a view of three people as he pushed open the door. Neither the guard, immobile on the far side of the room, nor Mei on a sofa thirty feet away saw him. The guard stared at a wall to his left, and Mei was looking at something else in the room. The only pair of eyes to lock on his was Cao’s—Lockhart had walked straight into his line of sight.

  Before Lockhart could lift his gun, Cao leapt toward Mei, reaching for her with his hands. He’d gotten halfway there when she rolled her body with astonishing speed, bringing her left arm high in the air and punching him on the side of the neck. An instant later, her left foot thudded into his groin.

  Lockhart swung his gun toward the guard, who hadn’t moved. The man raised his arms in surrender, and they looked at Mei, who was on top of the semiconscious Cao with an elbow around his throat. Her fashionable dress was all ruffled up. Lockhart averted his eyes, but the guard didn’t.

  “Don’t talk or move,” Lockhart said to the man. Then, to Mei: “Jesus, where did you learn to fight like that?”

  “Syringe,” she replied.

  He threw the bag to her and walked across to the guard, gesturing at him with the gun to sit. By the time he’d taped the man’s mouth and locked the mahogany door, Mei had injected Cao in the leg; he was now unconscious. She lifted herself off and smoothed her dress. Then she sat and extracted a pair of women’s sneakers, unlacing her heels and placing them in the bag with the syringe before zipping it.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Lockhart pulled the tape from the guard’s mouth and pointed the gun at his head. “You won’t be hurt as long as you do what we say. Carry him,” he said.

  The guard nodded and walked over to Cao, hoisting him on his back with his arms supporting Cao’s legs. Cao’s neck lolled to one side, and Lockhart taped his wrists in front of the guard’s body so he wouldn’t tip backward. He didn’t hear any sound from behind as they crossed the terrace, with Mei in the lead, to where the other guard was stretched. The loudest noise was Cao’s hoarse breathing. Lockhart’s gun wasn’t needed—the guard lurched a few times as he struggled with Cao’s dead weight, but he was an obedient mule.

  The gate to the stairs was unlocked, and they descended, with the glow fading behind them. Once, the guard pitched forward as he caught his foot, and Lockhart grabbed his arm to prevent him tumbling down the slope. At the bottom, they silently arranged Cao’s limbs on the handrail so that the guard could climb over and hoist him on his shoulders again, and then started the ascent. The guard’s breath grew louder as he labored up the slope, and Lockhart handed Mei his gun so he could heave from behind.

  Feng stood on the terrace laughing as they dragged Cao up the steps. Lockhart cut his arms free and lowered him to the ground, letting the guard sprawl by the pool, exhausted but grinning. He seemed to like being on their side. When they’d regained their breath, the men each took one of Cao’s arms, pulling his body across the terrace and along the corridor to a rear bedroom. They got him onto the bed in three shoves, and then Lockhart handcuffed his wrists to the frame.

  By the time they returned to the kitchen, the women were having a party. Feng was drinking from a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal, and Mei was swaying to a Justin Timberlake song that was being piped through the ceiling. The guard gazed, his mouth open, as if he’d discovered goddesses.

  He had done his job so well that Lockhart poured him a glass of champagne.

  They ate breakfast around the pool, while Cao stayed in his room. When they had gone to bed, the guard had taken the overnight shift outside his door. The guard was now asleep, so they had replaced him with the gardener. The window was sealed, the door was locked, and Cao was cooperating sullenly; the risk of him breaking out of his room was low. The water was shining blue and green, and the maid had prepared a five-star spread, ferrying it out on trays.

  “Won’t the Hong Kong Police search the neighborhood?” Lockhart asked.

  “You’re kidding,” said Feng. “Too many important people to upset. They won’t come to this house.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  Hearing a rumble of vehicles by the house, Feng dropped her toast and stood. It was the first time that Lockhart had ever seen her agitated. She piled her things on a tray, gulping down what was in her mouth and waving at them to follow. Running toward the house, she pulled back the door and shouted for the maid. There was a flurry of boots on the stone steps, and two soldiers strode onto the terrace, ahead of a green-uniformed officer.

  Feng hurried over to meet him, as he looked at Mei. He had dark circles under his eyes and dyed black hair. His eyebrows were set so high on his temple that they lent him an expression of permanent surprise.

  “Major General Sun, this is Song Mei and Thomas Lockhart.” Feng pointed at them. “The general is political commissar of the PLA’s Hong Kong Garrison, and he offered us his house for this operation,” she explained.

  The general pinched his lips, looking at Mei’s robe as if he’d seen it somewhere before. He wore six rows of ribbons above the pocket on his green uniform and the gold stars of the PLA on his epaulettes. His shirt collar was tinged with sweat in the morning sun.

  “He’s ready, General. This way,” Feng said.

  “Shouldn’t you change?” Lockhart asked Mei, after Feng had taken the general inside. “He saw the robe.”

  “I don’t have anything to wear except a torn Poppy uniform. Everything else belongs to his girlfriend.”

  She went to find something less obvious from the collection, picking a pair of pants and a pale blouse. They waited for an hour before Major General Sun emerged, still with his baffled expression. Feng led him toward the steps, but he stopped in front of Lockhart, offering his hand.

  “Mr. Lockhart, I would like to talk to you.”

  He wandered across the terrace and stood at the edge by the pool, extracting a packet of cigarettes and offering one to Lockhart. He tore the filter off his own, and propped it in the corner of his mouth, the smoke wreathing around him, before affably putting his hand on Lockhart’s arm.

  “My condolences,” he said. “Losing a child is a terrible thing. We who have not done so can only imagine the pain.”

  “Thank you,” Lockhart said. He thought of Cao, locked up in the house just a few feet away, and wished the man had been on the roof when they’d arrived, so he could have killed him. It didn’t seem like justice to hand him back to the people who had let him grow wealthy.

  “You know Henry Martin?” the general said, still puffing. “He is a remarkable man—an original, a brilliant innovator. We need more men like him in China. I’m sorry that he was embarrassed in this way. It was inhospitable.”

  “I will pass on your message. I’m sure he will appreciate it.”

  “I would like to meet Mr. Martin. Tell him that.” The general patted Lockhart on the back and left, his soldiers following.

  “Would you raid his house if you were the Hong Kong Police?” Feng came and sat, calmer now that the general was gone.

  “I don’t think so,” Lockhart said. “Why is the PLA so fascinated by Henry Martin?”

  “The PLA has interests in lots of enterprises. They probably think he could teach them a few things. Shall we go in?”

  Cao sat at a desk with his back to them, writing on a sheet of paper. His face looked pale from his abduction and unsettled sleep, but his clothes were neatly pressed. The guard had found him a set of fatigues, and he’d showered in the bathroom. His eyes passed briefly over Feng and Mei before settling on Lockhart.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the man who would have killed you if she hadn’t kicked you in the balls. You’re a big man when you’ve got an army behind you, but she beat y
our ass bare-handed.”

  Cao stood. “I’d like to leave now,” he told Feng.

  Lockhart hit Cao as he got close, crunching his fist against the man’s angular jaw. Cao slumped, striking his head on a chair and tumbling to the floor, his split lip oozing. Lockhart flapped his hand in pain—his knuckles had struck Cao’s bone and were already swelling. He didn’t regret it.

  “How many did you kill?” he said.

  Cao dabbed his wound with one finger. “No one who obeyed the rules was in danger. And why do you care?”

  “You asked my name. It’s Lockhart.”

  Cao looked at him appraisingly.

  “Was that girl a relative?”

  “She was my daughter.”

  He nodded at Mei. “Is that one too? They both made trouble. This one is a fighter, and the other one.… I remember. She ran a long way before they caught her. She nearly got away.”

  Lockhart clenched his fist, but the twinge of pain forced him to restrain himself. “The sentence for murder is death, Cao. It’s what you’ll get.”

  Cao climbed to his feet and sat by the desk again, wiping away the blood so that it wouldn’t stain his clothes. “That’s not what the general told me. I’m not under police arrest. I haven’t been charged.”

  “You’re in shuanggui,” Mei said.

  He shrugged. “We’ll see for how long. I told him I would cooperate with your investigation as a demonstration of my loyalty. Those who are self-interested might have led me astray. I am prepared to criticize myself and rededicate myself to the Party’s work.”

  They were standing in a semicircle around him, with the guard hovering by the door. Cao was the only one seated. He’d somehow taken a place at the center of things, without being asked.