by Jake Needham
“They might if their passing game doesn’t let them down.”
Neither August nor the woman said anything else for a moment, but then she smiled. He thought it was a great smile.
“You look surprised. Did you forget when I was getting here?”
“No, I didn’t forget. It’s just that… well, I was expecting Lawrence of Princeton.”
“Who?”
“It’s the nickname we’ve given to the usual messenger.”
“If you give me a nickname, I hope you’ll come up with something more interesting than that.”
August wasn’t sure what to say so he didn’t say anything.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I trust you’re not too disappointed I’m not the messenger you were expecting.”
“I’m not complaining. To tell the truth, you’re a lot taller than Lawrence of Princeton is. Which is good.”
Since the woman wasn’t very tall at all, his comment seemed to amuse her, and August felt that frisson of pleasure that every man feels whenever he manages to raise amusement in a good-looking woman. He knew he was beginning to preen a little and that annoyed him.
“Maybe we’d better take this upstairs to my office,” he said quickly, covering his response. “Would you like a drink?”
“No, thank you. I don’t drink.”
“Coffee then, maybe? A soda?”
“Coffee would be fine. Black, no sugar.”
“Just the way I drink it.”
The moment the words were out of August’s mouth, he felt like an idiot. Why had he said that? He knew that most men lose all control and start to prattle pointlessly whenever they are talking to an attractive woman, but he wanted to think he was better than that. Maybe he wasn’t.
August stood up before he had to think about it anymore, walked to the bar, and asked Woods to bring two coffees up to the office. Woods raised his eyebrows, which for Woods was practically a recitation of the Gettysburg Address, and nodded.
Back at the table where the woman was waiting, August said, “This way please.”
August thought of his office as comfortable, but it was a place where he worked. It wasn’t designed to impress visitors.
Along the wall opposite his desk he had one of the tables and two of the same leather chairs from downstairs so he would have a quiet place to eat. If he ate downstairs, people came over to talk or, worse, insist he join them at their table. Why did so many people think eating alone was sad, even pitiful, and that it was their duty as friends to save you from the shame of it? August liked eating alone, generally reading while he ate, but to be allowed to do that in his own place he had to hide upstairs in his office. It hardly seemed fair.
August gestured the woman toward the closer of the two chairs, then he moved some files he had stacked on the other chair and sat down opposite her.
“You have me at something of a disadvantage,” he said. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“That’s right,” she said. “You don’t.”
August was still trying to decide what to say to that when Woods came in without knocking and served the coffee. After he finished, he left and closed the door behind himself, never having said a word.
“So, you’re not going to tell me your name?”
The woman appeared to think about that briefly, then said, “No.”
“Suit yourself.”
“I’m just trying to make it more difficult for you to give me a nickname.”
“Well then, you’ve failed. I already have a nickname for you.”
“Really? Are you going to tell me what it is?”
August made a show of thinking about that for a moment, then said, “No.”
The woman laughed, and it was heartfelt and genuine, and in spite of himself August again felt the same frisson of accomplishment he had felt the first time she had laughed at something he said.
“Maybe we should just get right down to it then.” August folded his arms and shifted back in his chair. “What do you have for me?”
Chapter Eight
The woman put her dark-green shoulder bag on the table and dipped into it to remove an ordinary manila envelope. It wasn’t very thick. August knew that could be good news or it could be bad news. It might mean the assignment was something simple that wouldn’t involve the risk of starting World War Three, or it could mean it was something complicated about which the Conductor knew very little and August would be mostly on his own.
The woman pulled open the flap. August noticed the envelope wasn’t sealed, which was odd.
She removed an 8x10 photograph, placed it on the table, and turned it toward him.
“This is Fang Li Bao, known to his friends as Billy Fang,” she said. “He works for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in London where he runs a small team that does security assessments for the bank, mostly of their employees and properties they own. He is closely involved with the bank’s operations in Hong Kong and China in particular. Until two years ago, Billy was an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency with a level four clearance.”
The woman looked at August carefully as though she thought he might not be following everything she said.
“He was a case officer?” August asked.
She bobbed her head once, quickly, almost as if she didn’t want anyone else to see her responding. Since there was no one in the office other than the two of them, however, August didn’t see the point in her being so discreet.
“Beginning about a year ago,” she went on before he could ask her about it, “the Agency has seen some of its most valuable assets inside China go down. And I don’t mean going down in a casual sort of way. We’re talking about China. They were executed. One was reportedly shot right outside the government building where he worked just to make sure his coworkers got the message. The lucky ones were imprisoned. Seventeen separate sources have been blown and five covert facilities exposed. And that’s just so far. It’s already been one of the most damaging counterintelligence losses in the history of the Agency, and there are concerns it could get worse. Maybe a lot worse.”
“And Billy Fang was responsible?”
“Yes.”
“Yet he hasn’t been arrested.”
“No, he hasn’t. The FBI has run surveillance on him for two years, but they don’t think they’ve got enough to extradite him from the UK, and certainly not enough to convict him even if they can get him back in the US. He’s very good. Very careful.”
August nodded and waited for the rest.
“Billy Fang has been drip feeding what he knows about our assets and operations in China to the Chinese government for at least a year. He will soon be making a trip to Hong Kong during which there is reason to believe he intends to defect to China and turn over to the Chinese the balance of what he knows about American assets there. It’s apparently quite a lot.”
“And the FBI isn’t going to pick him up before that?”
“They’ve proposed that to the Brits and been turned down. There’s nothing more they can do.”
“I think I can see where this is going.”
“I’m sure you can. Your assignment is to intercept Billy Fang in Hong Kong and stop him before he can defect.”
“And by stop him, I gather you mean—”
“Of course that’s what I mean, Mr. August.”
“Do you know exactly when he’s traveling from London to Hong Kong?”
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
At first August wasn’t certain he had heard her correctly.
“I’m sorry, when?”
The woman just looked at him.
“You didn’t really say tomorrow, did you?”
She looked some more.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Mr. Fang is leaving London Heathrow tomorrow on a Cathay Pacific flight that arrives in Hong Kong on Saturday morning. He has a booking at the Cordis Hotel in Mongkok. We think the Chinese intend to pick him up on Sunday. Perhaps Monday at the
latest.”
August struggled to keep his face empty and said nothing. He just drank his coffee and looked at the woman.
After a moment she smiled slightly. Maybe, he thought, his face wasn’t as empty as he would have liked.
“Do you want me to tell the Conductor you can’t do it?” she asked.
“Nobody can do it. If we left for Hong Kong right now, I couldn’t get my people in place until late on Friday. That would give us, at most, thirty-six hours to identify this guy, come up with a plan, and execute it.”
“If you don’t do it, Billy Fang is going to defect to China. American assets in place there will be killed, perhaps dozens of them, and we will go blind in China for a decade, maybe even longer.”
“It doesn’t matter if this guy is going to personally fire a nuclear missile at New York City. That changes nothing. This can’t be done in thirty-six hours.”
The woman drank some coffee and thought about that.
“What do you expect me to do now?” she asked.
“I don’t expect anything,” August shrugged. “Your job was to deliver a message. You’ve done that. I guess that means you can go home now. Unless, of course, you want to go to Hong Kong and take a crack at the assignment yourself.”
“I’m just a messenger. You’re the operator.”
“Then maybe I ought to ask the Conductor to make me a messenger, too. Sounds like a hell of a lot better job than the one I have.”
“He’s not going to be happy about you refusing this assignment.”
“I’m not refusing the assignment. I’m telling you it’s not possible.”
“You haven’t even gone to Hong Kong and you’re saying it’s not possible. Like I said, I’m just a messenger, but even I can see there’s a big difference between going and looking at the assignment and concluding it’s not possible, and sitting on your ass in a bar in Thailand and saying it’s not possible.”
August hadn’t expected to get that kind of push back from the woman. Lawrence of Princeton would have just nodded and been on his way. He didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused. He settled for a little bit of each.
“Would you like some more coffee?” he asked her.
“No, I don’t want any fucking coffee! This is important! This matters! Don’t you even care?”
“Look, lady, don’t try to push this off on me. I wasn’t the one who investigated this clown for two years and couldn’t come up with enough evidence to take him. I’m not the one who let this go on until the day before everything is about to hit the fan. I’m not responsible for any of this. I just work here.”
“Then do your goddamned job! You may not be responsible for it happening, but you have the power to stop it, and if you don’t, you’re responsible for that.”
August got up and walked over to his desk and pushed papers around until he found a half-empty pack of Camels and a box of matches. He scooped up a heavy, cut-glass ashtray, returned to where he had been sitting, and dumped the ashtray on the table in front of the woman.
“I’d prefer you don’t smoke,” she said.
“Really?” August asked. “And you think I look like a guy who gives a shit what you prefer?”
He shook out a cigarette and rolled it around in his fingers for a moment as if he was giving due consideration to her asking him not to smoke. He wasn’t. He put it in his mouth and lit it. He started to offer the woman one just to be even more annoying, but then he decided not to bother.
“This is my office and my office is inside my bar. No one is forcing you to stay. You can leave anytime you want.”
He dumped the match into the ashtray and leaned forward on his forearms. He smoked quietly and looked at the woman without saying anything else.
“Are you always like this?” she asked.
“No, sometimes I’m rude and ungracious. Occasionally I’m told I’m downright unpleasant. You must have caught me on a good day.”
The woman reached out and rolled her coffee cup around in its saucer. August’s eyes went to her hand and he couldn’t help but notice how long and graceful her fingers were.
“You have to try to do this, Mr. August. It matters. You’re the last hope of stopping this guy before he does more damage than you can possibly imagine.”
August smoked. He said nothing.
“For God’s sake, at least go to Hong Kong and have a look. Check out the circumstances. Maybe there’s some way to get it done you haven’t thought about.”
He smoked. He continued to say nothing.
“Why won’t you even do that?”
August finished his cigarette without answering the woman. Stubbing it out in the ashtray, he leaned back in the chair and folded his arms.
“You don’t sound like you’re just a messenger.”
“What do you mean?”
“Messengers deliver messages, and then they go home. They don’t sit around and argue with me about the assignment that’s in the message.”
“I’m not Lawrence of Princeton.”
“I can see that, but it still sounds to me like you are personally invested in this assignment somehow. What are you not telling me?”
“I’m not interested in answering your questions. My job was to deliver this assignment to you and I’ve done that.”
She picked up the manila envelope and dumped it on top of the photograph. She neatly squared up the edges of the two and pushed the small stack across the table to August. He wondered what else was in the envelope, but he didn’t pick it up.
“This is what I was instructed to give you, and I have done that. I hope you will carry out your assignment. At the very least, I hope you will go to Hong Kong and look over the circumstances before you decide that you cannot carry out your assignment.”
The woman stood and picked up her shoulder bag.
“I apologize if I have spoken out of turn. I was simply surprised when you said you wouldn’t do it, and I spoke my mind without thinking. I have completed my assignment. Now it’s up to you whether or not you complete yours.”
“Are you headed straight back to Washington or are you staying in Pattaya tonight?”
The woman hesitated. “I don’t see why that’s relevant.”
“I guess it isn’t,” August shrugged. “Unless you want to have dinner.”
The woman looked at August and a half smile flickered at the corners of her mouth.
“Seriously?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I can think of a half dozen reasons off the top of my head, and if you give me a minute or two I can probably come up with a dozen more.”
“Is that a no?”
“Why would you even ask, Mr. August?”
“Well, hell, I had to try. If I hadn’t, just think how disappointed you would be.”
She shook her head slowly. “I would like to tell you that you’re the most arrogant man I have ever met, but you’re not.”
“You mean you know men worse than me?”
“Oh yes, quite a few actually.”
“Shit, I’ve got to up my game.”
The woman laughed out loud, and it was throaty and apparently genuine and filled with promises August knew she would never keep.
“Good night, John August. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
Then she turned, opened the door, and was gone.
Chapter Nine
August picked up the envelope the woman left behind and slid out the small stack of paper inside.
There was a sheet with a few of the usual details about the target’s personal habits, the sort of thing that might be helpful in planning an operation, and a couple more photographs, but there was nothing else. Now he knew Billy Fang was intelligent, punctual to a fault, liked western women, and ate a lot of cheeseburgers. August wondered what good any of that did him. He also wondered how many blonds eating cheeseburgers Billy Fang would be likely to find in Beijing.
August decided to stop thinking about Billy Fang. The operation
the messenger had described was impossible in the time they were being given to do it. It was as simple as that. A complete non-starter.
He stuffed everything back into the envelope and went downstairs.
Claire was waiting for him at the same table where he had been sitting with the messenger.
“I gather this isn’t a coincidence,” August said as he sat down.
“There are no coincidences, Bossman. You taught me that.”
August nodded and waited for what he knew would be coming. She didn’t make him wait very long.
“What did the messenger have for us?” she asked.
August hadn’t told her he was expecting a messenger, but they hadn’t had an assignment in a while and he wasn’t silly enough to think that Woods and Claire didn’t talk about things like that.
“You must be bored,” he told Claire. She didn’t answer. She just looked at him and waited.
Claire wasn’t her real name, of course, but it was the one she used now. She was tall for a woman, lean and fit looking, and her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked like a girl who hadn’t been out of college all that long and had probably played on the volleyball team when she was there. August didn’t know where Claire had gone to college, but he doubted she had played on a volleyball team wherever it was. She had been an operator at the Agency at the same time he was and had joined the Band a few years later. Now she was generally thought of by most everyone as August’s second-in-command in Asia. He was pretty sure he had never said anything like that officially, but sometimes he thought perhaps he should have.
August glanced around to make certain there was no one within earshot. It wasn’t even seven yet, and on Pattaya time that was pretty much first thing in the morning so the place was mostly empty. Woods was playing one of his favorite remastered Bessie Smith cuts, ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out’. If Pattaya ever had to designate a national anthem, August thought, that song would be the perfect choice.
“I told her we wouldn’t take the assignment.”