Surviving Spies (Irving Waters, Spy Fiction Series)

by Irving Waters

  “The government’s opinion of our practices is changing,” her father said, shaking his head. “I wish our students would not practice outside in large groups. The government never reacts kindly to public gatherings organized by non-Party members.”

  Her mother was looking at the paper too. She sounded concerned when speaking about one of their students leading an outdoor class, but Lu Lei couldn’t quite pick up what had happened to him. Perhaps he was the one who didn’t come to class.

  Lu Lei looked at herself in the mirror to see if her new red scarf was straight. Her mom had explained that the scarf was the school uniform and all the other children would have the same one around their necks. She told her that red is a lucky color, and that she was too old for pink now. Lu Lei knew her mother was lying because Barbie had a pink dress and she must be fifty years old, maybe eighty.

  The ride to school on the handlebars of her dad’s bicycle wasn’t as fun as usual because he was giving so much advice to her. The street breakfast restaurants flew by. He talked about being nice to that boy, Wei Bao, and remembering to breathe and listen to the teachers and keep her mouth shut and have fun, but share. It was a boring ride, and her mom wouldn’t let her put her doll in her bag to take to school, so Lu Lei was already in a foul mood.

  “Barbie is too old for school,” her mom had said to her, extracting the doll from her bag and putting her gently back on the bed to sleep.

  Her dad slowed and coasted through the school gates, behind which was a scary looking square concrete building with lots of windows. There were already many other kids there, all with the same red handkerchief around their neck. Her dad parked the bike and walked her over to the teacher, who was holding a big white sign that said something about ‘new students’.

  “Good morning. What is your name, please?” the lady asked, still holding the sign up.

  “Good morning, teacher. My name is Lu Lei.”

  “Very good. Stand over there with those other students,” she said, pointing at a group of girls and boys all chattering away to each other. Lu Lei turned and said goodbye to her father and then skipped over to join her new classmates, all of whom were nice to her and said hello, asking her name.

  Wu Feng strolled away, looking over his shoulder momentarily to capture the image of his little Lu Lei off on her first solo adventure. She was so small. He couldn’t believe that she was out in the world now. He turned and continued toward the bike rack, just inside the gate. He still had time for some street food before he had to get to a meeting with Li and the Master at the tai chi studio.

  Matt and Casey Nelson were enjoying a leisurely American breakfast at home in their large apartment in central Beijing when the phone rang.

  “I’ll get it, Matt, it’s probably my cop.”

  Matt listened, continuing to read the paper.

  “This is Casey.”

  “When?”

  “Same place as usual?”

  Casey hung up.

  “0900 at the park.”

  “I’m on overwatch?” he asked, knowing the answer.

  “Yep. We have thirty-five minutes to get out the door,” Casey rummaged in the desk drawers. “Could you open the safe, honey? I could have sworn that I put the comms in the desk last night after I charged them.”

  Matt pulled the couch away from the wall and removed the wooden panel that hid the safe. He keyed in the code and opened the steel door, reaching in to remove a small stack of Chinese currency. He retrieved two pistols and the communications gear that Casey was failing to find. He checked the battery charge on both units, and then shut the safe, replacing the panel and moving the couch back, groaning a little and clutching his back as he stood up.

  The couch was heavy– a well made Italian leather piece that they had shipped over along with a container of other home comforts. They had been stationed long-term in Beijing by the CIA. They were running a factory that made barbecues for export. The business was profitable enough to appear legitimate to the Chinese government, but without making so much money as to draw attention. They had legitimate distributors in the States, and profits went through a shell corporation operated by the agency.

  “Honey, do you have your running shoes on this time?” she called out, pausing her search.

  “I’ll put them on. Are we expecting some exercise this morning?”

  “I hope not, but why don’t you dress for jogging and you can exercise after the meet. I can take your sidearm home with me, and your comms. A run might do your back some good. Where are those damn comms?”

  “They were in the safe.” Matt rolled his eyes. Casey was super smart, but disorganized. She was a solid operator in the field, particularly good at getting men to share information. Around her, men tended to be weak.

  Twenty minutes later, the Barbecue Couple, as people called them, were together on a motorbike headed to the designated park, early enough to give Matt time to get situated in the empty office on the third floor of a building that overlooked the meeting point.

  Casey knew never to trust a Chinese informant. To her advantage, in China most of her assets were easily swayed by money. She always overpaid her contacts and made sure each time to instill some doubt and fear in them by telling them that they were being surveilled.

  The Barbecue Couple were alone in Beijing with limited resources. Their mandate was to observe and report. They were free to develop their own assets such as the police officer, but their priority was to maintain cover and keep reporting in for as long as that cover wasn’t compromised. Most payments to informants could be drawn out of the factory’s petty cash, but larger amounts had to be procured by their new handler, who was ten years Matt’s junior, at Langley.

  Matt and Casey were not happy about the inexperienced officer who had stepped in to replace their original handler when he retired. He was arrogant, rude, and he often made mistakes. His name was Marcus Roet.

  Matt entered the office building, wearing his jogging tracksuit and a small backpack.

  “Comms?” he said into the small microphone whose wire ran along the length of his arm, under the tracksuit sleeve, back to the solid little unit he’d placed in his zippered pocket.

  “Comms are good,” came Casey’s reply. She leaned the motorbike against its stand and entered the small park, pacing over to a bench. She sat down and pulled out a Mandarin language textbook from her backpack.

  Matt’s voice sounded in her ear, “Nine people behind you at your eight, doing tai chi. Their average age looks to be about... a hundred and four.”

  Casey put her hair up in a ponytail and smiled to herself, listening to Matt’s report, “None of them seem to have bad backs. Maybe I should try tai chi myself. Continuing, there is a woman wheeling a toddler in some kind of bamboo mini-prison on wheels behind you at your five o’clock. Looks legit. Here’s our guy, approaching on a bicycle to your right. Don’t forget to frisk him, honey.”

  Casey stood and turned to look at the approaching man on his bike. She smiled. He was out of uniform and had a couple of plastic bags of groceries swinging from the handlebars. He rolled to a stop next to Casey, greeting her with a nod. Before speaking, Casey indicated for him to open his coat and shirt, which he did, before buttoning up again. Casey was satisfied, and they both sat on the park bench.

  “What can you tell me?”

  “You got the money?”

  “Yes, of course,” Casey opened her backpack to show him the cash. “Answers first, please. Let’s see what your information is worth. People are going missing. What can you tell me?”

  “About what?”

  “Falun Gong.”

  “Oh, that. Orders from the top came in last week. The Party does not like the Falun Gong protesting against the official press. They are getting too big, too vocal. Complaining about propaganda. Demonstrating in the wrong places. Before now, it was acceptable. Just meditation and exercise, but now it’s becoming religious, even political. The Chief issued an order to watch for group le
aders and instigators. Already the government has begun to take them when they are alone. Put them in jail. The student you asked me about is in jail. But it’s not us doing it. There is a special department. No uniforms.”

  Matt’s voice sounded again in Casey’s ear, “Find out if they are watching Wu Feng and Sun Yi.”

  “Are they watching the tai chi masters that the Chief knows? What about the old man?”

  “Their photos are not on the board. They don’t practice outside. My advice to them is to stay away from Li Hongzhi. He is at the top of the watch list. Big boss of Falun Gong movement. He will be an enemy of the Party in no time. Too much power. Too many followers.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “You want the money or not?”

  “Okay, calm down, baby. You probably haven’t heard about the mass shooting that happened yesterday. Over fifty dead. It’s not in the papers. Some crazy army sniper came into Beijing and shot seventy people, including police and some young soldiers.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “The government made his wife terminate the pregnancy at seven months. She died. Baby didn’t make it either. He already had a daughter but was secretly trying to have a son. He went against the ‘one child policy’ and got caught. Sad for everybody.”

  “Did they take him out?”

  “Officially, he was shot dead. I heard that he’s in a secret jail. The Party will keep him as a tool. Let him loose if they need a job done under the radar. Maybe they will send him to America. Who knows? He made a lot of enemies here, shooting the place up. We all lost people. Better watch his back.”

  “Sounds like a psychopath.”

  “The ‘one child policy’ is good, but when you are from the villages, it’s hard to understand. Goes against tradition. Do you have more than one child?”

  Casey looked back at the informant, maintaining a straight face despite the weirdness of the question.

  “No, I don’t have more than one child. I don’t have any. But really, thanks for asking. That didn’t make me feel uncomfortable at all.”

  “That’s all I have for you today. Money?”

  “Here you are,” she handed him a paper bag containing the cash. “As always, I would like to remind you: do not spend it in large amounts. You will get yourself disappeared if you buy fancy clothes or a new car. Put it in your freezer for a rainy day. Maybe you can go to America and have five kids if you can continue to keep your mouth shut and maintain a low profile. Just remember, our team is monitoring you. If we go down, you go down. Don’t forget.”

  “Nice.” Matt’s voice appeared again in Casey’s ear.

  “Next time I want American dollars.”

  “I’ll talk to my boss. Maybe we can set you up with a bank account in the States.”

  He eyed her suspiciously before getting up and going to his bicycle.

  “Okay, bye then.” Casey smiled, a little sarcastically. She watched him wobble away on his bike, across the park toward the road. She didn’t like him, but he’d been reliable thus far, and he seemed to be well connected on the streets.

  “Nice job, honey. Good info. Meet you at the motorcycle? I’m coming home with you. I need another coffee. We should talk to the Master and tell him what’s going on.”

  Wu Feng arrived at the tai chi studio fifteen minutes ahead of time. The venetian shutters sliced the sun into stripes on the floorboards. He turned on the lights and set up the small room which contained floor-to-ceiling shelves full of reference books and old texts. He switched on the metal urn and sprinkled green tea leaves into four cups.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up, the moment he peered out through the wooden slats. The man across the street, smoking, leaning against the wall; He was obviously secret police. The face, the posture. There was no mistaking it.

  Li Hongzhi was due to arrive soon with the Master. This morning’s article had named him as the Falun Gong leader. Any meeting with Li would be reported to the Party. He only had a couple of minutes to think about how to avoid being seen with him. Sun Yi said she would come directly from home by herself.

  Leaving the lights on, he grabbed a faded blue cap from a drawer in the desk and crossed the studio to the back exit. He stepped out of the building. There was no one covering the alley. He walked out and turned down the street in the direction from which the Master and Li would be coming.

  The cop across the street flicked his cigarette butt to the pavement, looking up to watch Sun Yi’s arrival. He glanced down at the photo in his hand, pocketing it as she turned to enter the building.

  The Master ambled beside Li toward the studio, just a few minutes late for the meeting. They were discussing a concerning phone call that the Master had received from the American woman. Li slowed his pace almost to a halt as he saw Wu Feng walking toward them with the strangest look on his face.

  Sun Yi entered the room and saw that the urn was already on, and the cups were out. Strange, she thought to herself. She sat in a chair and gently filled her lungs and closed her eyes. Instead of worrying she began to meditate.

  Wu Feng slowed his walk. He looked ahead at the Master, their distance closing to a few feet. “Follow me,” he whispered.

  The Master and Li turned and ambled calmly behind Wu Feng. Both smiled almost imperceptibly. Wu Feng maintained a slackened pace for the Master’s benefit. He couldn’t be sure that they weren’t being followed. Most people knew that the undercover police worked in pairs.

  He turned into a smaller street and entered a dimly lit restaurant that was empty, save for a couple of waiters cleaning up after the breakfast crowd. The Master and Li entered soon after, and joined him in a dark corner at a table in the back. The waiter appeared and handed them three large menus. The Master hid behind his menu and cackled, his eyes jerking from one side to the other.

  Li asked, “And your wife?”

  “She will be at the studio waiting for us.”

  “Should we call her so she does not worry?”

  The Master answered, “There is no phone at the studio. We need not worry. She will be safe. She is not doing anything against policy.”

  Wu Feng leaned in and whispered, “Someone is watching the studio.”

  The Master shifted his weight and sat up straight again, putting the menu down. “This morning I received a phone call from our American friend, Casey Nelson. She passed along some interesting news. The government is not interested in you or Sun Yi. Not yet. Their focus is on our friend here and the other leaders who choose to organize protests and hold large practices outdoors. You should know, however, that your student was taken. I have tried to convince Li to leave the country. His life will be in danger very soon.”

  Li smiled and nodded. “I thank you for your concern, Master, but I shall remain, at least for a while. I have work to do. Perhaps I can smooth the way for our practitioners before the Party chooses the road to violence.”

  Turning to Wu Feng, he continued, “I would add that the incident with Lu Lei and the Police Chief’s son may have put both you and Sun Yi on the radar. I was watching the Chief at the party and he seems angry. Wu Feng, you have a decision to make. You can stay small, hope to avoid confrontation, and counsel your students to refrain from leading large practices with their groups, or–”

  Wu Feng interrupted, “–or join them in the streets. Yes, I must decide. My students’ lives are in my hands. My wife’s too, not to mention our little girl.”

  The Master held his hand up to stop him. “Everything is exactly as it should be. Wu Feng, when the time comes, you will know what to do. Stay in the present and await your intuition. Your feelings will tell you what to do. Be still. The dust will settle. Meanwhile, we shall keep helping our students in the best way that we can.”

  Li added, “Lao Tzu once said, ‘In letting go, things are accomplished.’”

  The Master nodded, “But if you continue the folly of trying, the world is beyond being won.”


  “Something to eat?” asked the waiter.

  Lu Lei reached into her bag and pulled out her metal chopsticks. The school cafeteria was rowdy. Children began to eat their lunch, getting to know each other. Lu Lei looked over her shoulder at a table full of boys to check if Wei Bao was still ignoring her. He shot her a hateful look and returned his attention to his noodles.

  The first morning of school had been up and down for her. She’d found the other girls to be harder to get along with than the students in her parents’ tai chi class. The adults asked questions and smiled and listened to her, but the girls her age just wanted to talk about themselves. The boys yelled over each other and everything seemed like a competition.

  She had already forgiven Wei Bao for abducting Barbie at the party, but whenever he looked at her, his mouth was down-turned and his eyes narrowed.

  Just before lunch the teacher explained that the students all across China studied so hard that they all needed glasses by the time they were in year seven, so the Chairman of the Communist Party had decreed that they perform special eye exercises together every day. She told the class, “Listen to the woman’s voice on the loudspeaker and copy me.”

  As the teacher took the class through their first daily eye exercise, counted off by a harsh voice over the crackly speaker bolted to the wall near the ceiling, Lu Lei hoped that the exercise would relax Wei Bao’s eyes and he would be able to stop squinting at her.

  After school, Lu Lei was happy to see her father standing next to his bicycle outside the gates waiting to take her to tai chi. He scooped her up and looked at her smiling face. “How was your first day?”

  “I was the best at calligraphy, and I could read better than everyone in the class.”

  He laughed. “Did you make any new friends?”

  “No. Well yes, lots, but they all talk too much. I like the boys better, but they shout all the time.”