An American Spy (39 page)

Sun Bingjun was only testing the borders of Zhu’s stupidity here, for he was now, by his very presence, involved, and his driver was a witness. “Come with me,” Zhu said and led him to the dining room. He retreated to a corner and waited, watching Sun Bingjun read the pages through and, like Zhu, read them again.

“Well,” said the old man.

“You see why I needed you to come.”

Sun Bingjun raised his head to look directly at Zhu. “You wanted someone to believe your desperate lie.”

Perhaps inviting him had been a mistake. “That’s not true.”

Sun Bingjun walked to the first page again and read aloud, “
Comrade Colonel Xin Zhu, I am writing to draw your attention to a conspiracy that threatens the very foundation of our Republic.
Where did you get this from? One of those pulp novels the kids find so heartwarming these days? Page two,” he said, taking a small step toward Zhu. “
I am coming to you because, as your adversarial history with Wu Liang is well known, I thought you might be able to view my evidence with a clear eye.
” Sun Bingjun smiled. “Very good, that. You turn your prejudice into a virtue. And here,” he said, lowering a finger to point at a section of page three. “
I’ve been warned that Wu Liang is suspicious of my investigations, and that, within days, I might be called in to answer trumped-up charges, the same charges that I am preparing to level against him. This is why I’ll be sending this by courier as soon as possible.
” Sun Bingjun opened his hands, flat, and tilted them from side to side. “Very chancy, that one. You show him to be wrong because, according to the date here—April 21—Wu Liang picked him up on that same day. This is the drama, of course, because the poor man thought he had more time before the devil caught up with him. Which is why he never sent the letter. Which is why it remained undiscovered until poor Hua Yuan came across it and, like a good wife and citizen, called you. But here,” he said, raising an index finger, “this is the pièce de résistance, at least to my mind.” It was on the second to last page, and the old man pointed a stubby finger at it. “
I realize that there will be resistance to you bringing these charges to light if, in fact, I am unable, and so I suggest going to Comrade Sun Bingjun, who is preparing to retire, and who would have fewer concerns about risking his position. He knows he is safe from ridicule.
Beautiful!” he said. “It directs you to do exactly as you have done—drag me into this foul mess of your engineering.”

“Comrade Lieutenant General,” Zhu began, but the old man waved at him to stop.

“I know what the stories are, Xin Zhu. I’m an old drunk who will fade quietly away upon retirement. I don’t care about that. When I’m dead, my reputation will be entirely academic. What I
do
mind is when younger men listen to those stories and come to the conclusion that I am easily manipulated, that I can be a tool for their survival. The fact is that I’ve done something none of you young men have done, and that is to thrive into my dotage in the snake pit of Beijing politics.”

Xin Zhu placed his hands on his thighs, saying nothing. He had no idea what he could say. It was the blood, the body, the urine, and the letter—they had made him stupid. He should have known that Sun Bingjun wasn’t about to put himself out for . . . for what? For a thorn in the side of Chinese intelligence? For the story of a woman’s death that was only that—a story? Why did he expect he would be believed?

Sun Bingjun sighed loudly and pulled out a chair, sitting in front of the final page of the letter, but he wasn’t reading a thing—he was watching Zhu. He said, “This is how untenable your situation is, Xin Zhu. This is how easily Wu Liang could turn it around and throw it into your face. Every accusation is built on the foundation of a story, and before you speak to anyone you must learn your entire story, every detail.” He grunted a half-laugh. “Why am I telling you this? You’re Xin Zhu, the master of the narrative. You used a story to draw the Americans into a beautiful trap. Yet now you have entered this storyline unprepared. Who committed the murder in the kitchen? Where are the files that Bo Gaoli talks about here, the ones that prove that Wu Liang has been a CIA source for the last twenty years? I certainly hope it doesn’t turn out to be a collection of e-mails like the ones you shared. And how do I really know that Bo Gaoli penned this letter?”

Sun Bingjun was right. He was getting ahead of himself, but, faced with a corpse and a urine-stained letter, time was no longer on his side. “I’m rushing,” he admitted.

“And you’ve got too much to deal with already. What have you learned about the Americans’ great act of vengeance?”

“We’re still watching Alan Drummond’s room.”

“Enough, Xin Zhu. That man should be dead by now. You wait, and you appear complicit in his survival.”

“Killing him will only make them change their plans.”

“You don’t even know their plans, Xin Zhu, so it makes no difference if they change them.”

Zhu involuntarily rubbed his cheek, then told him about Liu Xiuxiu’s report on Stuart Jackson and the
ferociously ambitious
wife of one of their colleagues.

“Hearsay,” Sun Bingjun said, though from the look on his face he was taken aback. “Excellent hearsay, but still hearsay.”

“And I have someone else inside,” Zhu said, “Milo Weaver. He’s working with them, but he’s under my control.”

“You didn’t report that to the committee.”

“Given the clues we now have in our possession, I believe I made the right choice.”

Sun Bingjun looked momentarily irritated. Then, “Did you also leave something out of the report on the murder of Yevgeny Primakov? Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“Who did it?”

“I don’t know.”

Sun Bingjun raised an eyebrow, perhaps signifying his disbelief. “Don’t worry about Hua Yuan. My driver, happily, is loyal, and he knows better than to admit to seeing anything. I’ll talk to the Jade gatekeepers and find out who else visited this morning.”

“That’s extremely generous.”

Sun Bingjun pursed his lips, then shook his head. “It’s pragmatism, Xin Zhu. If you’re not constructing an elaborate scheme to protect yourself, then Wu Liang is truly dangerous and should be exposed. If I help you build the case against him, and it’s successful, then my star rises just before retirement, but if it fails, I leave humiliated. Which is why I’m not going to let you do it on your own. Look at yourself. You haven’t been sleeping enough, and I don’t think it’s only because of your young wife. You’re trying to find a mole while fending off the forces of American retaliation. It’s too much for one man.”

“Either way,” Zhu said, “your help is appreciated.”

“Then let’s make sure I don’t live to regret it. Tomorrow you’ll have a chance to tell the story to the committee, so get it straight. I’ll make sure Wu Liang is in attendance.”

Zhu nodded.

“Finish off these people in Hong Kong. You don’t want their presence used against you at the meeting.”

Again, Zhu nodded.

“Now go, Xin Zhu. I’ll deal with this.”

Zhu silently withdrew. He crossed the lawn and went to his car. Inside the Mercedes Sun Bingjun’s big driver, with one of those clay faces that could be so easily forgotten, watched Zhu’s progress, while Zhu noticed that various neighbors, up and down the street, had returned home.

As he drove, Shen An-ling called again to discuss Milo Weaver’s twenty-minute visit to room 212 of the Peninsula Hotel. The microphones had only picked up a few spare words, the sound of a fistfight, and then silence as they switched, assumedly, to handwritten communication. “After Weaver left the room, He Qiang tried to give him another phone.”

“Tried?”

“Milo Weaver refused. He told He Qiang to go fuck himself. Those words. I think the pressure is getting to him.”

“Or he knows we don’t have his family,” Zhu said. It didn’t matter, not now. Tomorrow, Wu Liang was going to have to answer for his collusion with the Americans, and perhaps he would offer answers to some of these mysteries. Zhu said, “Enough, Shen An-ling.”

“Enough of what?”

“Everything. I want you to close them down.”

A sigh. “Thank you, Comrade Colonel.”

An hour later, in the office, he was connected to everything by a computer and a telephone linked to Shen An-ling, who kept watch in the lobby of the Peninsula. As there were only nine men at his disposal, they would first grab Alan Drummond and then collect the Tourists from the Kowloon. After Milo Weaver’s exit, He Qiang had reported no other sounds from room 212 until, as he prepared to move in, Alan Drummond’s cell phone bleeped an incoming message. Then, the sound of movement, of clothes being pulled on, of luggage being shifted. A door. Then, through the spy hole of his own door, He Qiang watched an Asian man, perhaps Vietnamese, walk past with nothing in his hands.

“It’s not him,” He Qiang reported to the others, as well as to Beijing, and gave a brief description. “But he came from the room. Heading for the stairwell.”

“Don’t lose him” was Xin Zhu’s only advice, as he wondered who it could be.

With He Qiang on the same floor, they had two men—Xu Guanzhong and Wei Chi-tao—holding different corners of the lobby, while Shen An-ling observed from behind the concierge desk with two smart phones—one for communication, one for tracking his people. Five more men waited outside the tower, watching rear entrances on Middle Road, side entrances on Nathan Road, and the grandiose main entrance on Salisbury Road. Another kept an eye on the Kowloon lobby. However, after three minutes no one reported anyone leaving the Peninsula stairwell. Shen An-ling called He Qiang’s phone, which rang seven times without an answer. Xu Guanzhong moved from the lobby to the stairwell, keeping an open line, and in that small Beijing office Zhu listened to Xu Guanzhong’s breaths and feet echoing in the stairwell before the feet stopped and Xu Guanzhong said, “Oh.”

“What is it?” asked Shen An-ling.

“I think he’s dead. Yes. He’s dead.”

“He Qiang?”

“Garrote,” came the unnerved reply. “His head is nearly . . .”

Zhu pulled at his lower lip. He Qiang was dead? There were only five floors to the Peninsula’s original building, but thirty floors had been added in the midnineties with the construction of a modern tower. This could take forever. “Continue up the stairs,” Zhu ordered. “Wei Chi-tao, you, too. Everybody else, move inside.”

On his computer, Xin Zhu had a map of the two Hong Kong blocks that encompassed the Peninsula and the Kowloon, on which he watched his men’s cell phones. Red spots on the screen, all in motion. Three red spots in the stairwell of the Peninsula, and five more closing in. Shen An-ling, in the lobby, began to deliver orders personally, and two more red spots moved into the stairwell.

Xu Guanzhong had more bad news. “He didn’t go back to his room, and the other corridors are empty. We’re going to check the maids’ closets.”

Shen An-ling’s voice, irritably, “You didn’t do that already?”

Xu Guanzhong didn’t bother answering, and Zhu realized that while Alan Drummond might have checked into that hotel, he had probably never gone up to the room. He knew from experience how easy a trick like that was to pull.

On the map of the Peninsula, the red dots were moving through the corridors, and only one remained in the stairwell—the immobile He Qiang. Over the speaker Xu Guanzhong breathed heavily when, suddenly, there was a loud two-tone squeal. “Fire alarm. He pulled the fire alarm. The sprinklers are going.” Noise, voices. “Evacuation.”

“Keep looking,” Zhu ordered. Shen An-ling had kept three men in the lobby. “Watch the crowd.”

A woman’s scream, and Xu Guanzhong stated the obvious. “Someone’s discovered He Qiang in the stairwell.”

Then, after a moment, Xu Guanzhong said, “Wei Chi-tao?”

No answer.

Xu Guanzhong said, “Wei Chi-tao, where are you?”

“He’s on the fourth floor,” Xin Zhu said, though he could see that Wei Chi-tao’s phone was as immobile as He Qiang’s.

Then he heard, “Uhh,” as if Xu Guanzhong had just lost all the air in his body.

“Xu Guanzhong,” said Zhu. On the screen, Xu Guanzhong’s phone, on the third floor, was not moving either. “Answer, Xu Guanzhong.”

A voice spoke to him in English. “He’s coming to get you, Xin Zhu.”

“Who is that?” Shen An-ling shouted.

On the computer screen, Xu Guanzhong’s telephone moved swiftly down the corridor and out a window.

Shen An-ling shouted, “Everyone! Third floor!”

The other spots around the Peninsula swept inward, toward the stairwell, slowed as they fought the evacuating crowds, but Zhu knew that didn’t matter. They wouldn’t find this Sebastian Hall. He was a Tourist.

“Stop them,” Zhu said to Shen An-ling.

Shen An-ling said, “What?”

“Immediately. If he’s still there, he’s going to kill off all our men. Send everyone to the Kowloon, and we’ll see if we can do better there.”

“But—”

“
Immediately
, Shen An-ling.”

5

In the Peninsula lobby, as before, he found it hard to spot shadows—rock gardens, as his father would have called them—but this time he wasn’t able to see well because of the emotions.
They are safe
, just as the note in his father’s pocket had said. Twenty minutes ago, when the door to room 212 had opened, his confusion had been compounded, but by the end of his talk with Tran Hoang the confusion had been cleared away, and with that so much of his anxiety. He’d felt it falling away in chunks as he left Tran Hoang, and when the big Chinese man, He Qiang, offered him a new phone, his joy told him just what to say, “Go fuck yourself.” He’d taken the stairs back down here to the lobby and was blinded by the knowledge that they were safe. When, almost at the door, he spotted his sister sitting on a sofa, arms crossed over her stomach, staring at him, he gave her a smile and a wink before leaving.

Outside, his vision was clear enough to see across Salisbury Road, and he saw that Leticia and Hector were no longer there. He had no doubt that they would find him on their own, so he turned the corner, walking up the packed sidewalk along Nathan Road, and at the intersection with Middle Road entered the Kowloon. Here, finally, he noticed a man who, he suspected, was all too aware of his entrance, but he let him be. His shadow would matter or he wouldn’t matter, but in the end all the shadows in the world mattered so little. Really, none of this mattered now.