Red Cell (32 page)

“
I am
.”

“
I have waited a long time to meet you, but I had hoped that it would be some other way,
” the woman said. “
My name is Rebecca Zhou.”

“
You are American?
” Pioneer asked.

The woman nodded. “
My grandparents fled to the United States during the Revolution when they were very young.”

Pioneer stared at her. “
How long have you lived here?”

The young CIA officer smiled at him. “
Six years.
”

“
Six years? CIA officers have lived in my building for six years?
” He was astonished.

“
CIA officers have lived in your building for almost as long as you have been working for us. You are a very valuable man. We are the fourth team to hold this post. Our job was to watch you, report back on your condition, and assist in your evacuation if it became necessary,
” Rebecca said.

“
Then you knew that the MSS was watching?
” he asked.

Rebecca shook her head. “
Not until you signaled. The MSS has been far more subtle than we ever expected, so we didn’t know until you discovered it yourself. But they have overreached, trying to use you to find a larger network of assets that doesn’t exist. We changed some of our tradecraft just for you. They didn’t realize this, and so they waited too long to arrest you.”

Kyra emerged from the kitchen with an open box. She dropped the red backpack, shed her coat, and began to pull off layers of clothing. Pioneer wondered for a moment just how much clothing she intended to remove.

Rebecca reached into the box and pulled out a bundle of clothing. “
Please put this on, and hurry.”

Pioneer looked at Kyra, who had removed all but the base layer of her clothing. Rebecca took Kyra’s outer-layer shirt and pulled it over her head. Both women were wearing casual blue jeans cut slightly large to facilitate quick movement. Standing next to Rebecca, he saw that her appearance was similar to Kyra’s from moments ago. Not similar, he realized. Identical, as much as two unrelated women could appear. “
And where is my twin?
” he asked.

“
My husband, Roland, is in the bedroom, waiting for your clothing,
” the young woman answered.

Pioneer removed his coat, shirt, shoes, and pants and handed them over. Rebecca took them and disappeared into the darkness in the rear of the apartment. He donned the clothing the woman had provided for him. The fit was perfect.
How did they know?
he thought. He supposed that over the years, at least one of the people who met with him had had a trained eye for clothing sizes. Or had they been in his apartment as well? He doubted they would ever tell him.

Kyra pulled out another package from the box, this one zipped inside a black nylon case. She gestured for Pioneer to come with her and led him into the light of the kitchen.

The disguise package was descended from the “Silver Bullet” technologies developed by the Agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology in the 1970s to help case officers penetrate KGB surveillance in Moscow. Kyra had never seen the original disguises. They were older than she was, but the pieces she applied to his face and body were realistic enough to make her stomach turn. The sight of blood had never fazed her, but holding body parts realistic enough to pass close inspection was another matter. They took thirty seconds to apply. She stepped back, inspected him, nodded, and led him back to the entryway. He looked around for a mirror but could not find one.

Rebecca was waiting with another man who was dressed as Pioneer was when he had entered the apartment.

“Are we ready?” Roland said in English.

“Ready,” Kyra said.

Rebecca reached down and hefted the red backpack. It was full of books, newspapers, pencils, and other items common to any Western exchange student. There was nothing to incriminate the carrier. The color was the only feature that made the pack important. “
You have the keys to your car?
” Rebecca said.

Pioneer nodded. It took him a moment to understand that she was asking for them. He handed them over. He was about to tell her where to find the car when it occurred to him that she surely knew.

Roland turned to Pioneer and spoke in his own perfect Mandarin. He also appeared Chinese, but Pioneer inspected his face and saw that he looked more like a Beijing native than his wife. “
I regret I didn’t get to know you better. Perhaps we’ll get to talk in the United States one day soon.”

“
I hope so,
” Pioneer said. “
You have my gratitude. But you could be arrested. Why would you do that for me?”

Roland grinned. “
The director says that risk is our business. It’s what we do. And you have earned it.”

“
Thank you.
” The words felt insufficient.

“
Thank us after you’re out of China,
” Roland said. Pioneer nodded and smiled. Roland turned to Kyra and switched back to English. “We leave first. Give us ten minutes to draw surveillance. You’ll get a call, one ring only, if they figure things out before time is up. If that happens, you run. Which stairwell did you come down?”

“The west,” Kyra said.

“Anyone pass you?” Roland asked.

Kyra nodded. “We had to switch over on six.”

“We’ll take the central elevator down. They’ll think that’s as far as you went when you left the stairwell. Take the east stairwell. Turn left when you get outside, one block, and then cut through the park. That’ll send you north. The taxi will be waiting on the far side,” Roland said. “The driver is one of ours. We’ll buy you as much time as we can.”

“Done deal. You’re on the clock,” Kyra said.

“See you in the States,” Roland assured her. “Ready for dinner and a movie, hon?”

“Six years. You have no idea how ready I am,” his wife answered. She put the red backpack over her shoulder, then turned back to Pioneer. She leaned in close and put a hand behind his head. She whispered something in Mandarin that Kyra could not understand.

“
You were never alone.”

Rebecca smiled at the man and took his hand as his facade finally cracked and he began to sob. His body shook and he covered his face, trying to hide the sudden shame he felt at crying before women. His knees felt weak. He feared that he would fall to the floor when Rebecca put a hand to his shoulder and pulled him close, saying nothing, until he could compose himself. Though he had controlled his emotions for decades, it still took a full minute.

She stepped away, took Roland’s hand, and the husband-and-wife team walked out into the hallway. Kyra closed the door and marked the time on her watch. It was going to be a very long ten minutes.

The deadline came and the phone never rang. Kyra took Pioneer by the hand and they ran anyway.

MARRIOTT HOTEL, ROOM 745
3C CHONG WEN MEN WAI STREET
CHONG WEN DISTRICT, BEIJING

The hotel suite that Mitchell had arranged was larger and far nicer than Jonathan had expected. The US Government was not usually extravagant when paying for travel accommodations, but the NCS had its own standards. The analyst had heard stories, exaggerated he’d thought, about how well some case officers lived on the road, but this
room lived up to them. The suite featured a very large sitting and dining area, divided from the kitchenette by a wet bar, and a bedroom separated by a sliding French door with opaque glass panes set in a grid. Jonathan parted the suite’s heavy white curtains an inch, which was enough to see that the view of the Forbidden City was inspiring. The food service had been excellent, with classic Italian cuisine on the menu as well as the local favorites. The television dominating the near wall was an impressive plasma display so large that Jonathan knew he would never be able to afford one for his own home. Mitchell had the volume up high enough to annoy both Jonathan and anyone who might try listening through hidden microphones. The senior analyst wished that he could afford such places on his own salary when he was traveling privately. Analysts didn’t get approvals for this kind of accommodation. Jonathan accepted that with a grudge, but he had no desire to play on the case officers’ field, no matter what the perks were.

In truth, he had no interest in the room’s interior design. He shifted his feet, clasped his hands behind his back, and tried to suppress the part of his mind shouting that his study of it was an effort at self-distraction. He was trying very hard not to wonder where Kyra was at the moment.

Mitchell had chosen the suite at random. Beijing had thousands of hotels, likely hundreds of thousands of rooms for rent, and even the MSS could not bug them all. At least that was the theory. There was still a decent chance that somewhere in the basement the MSS was listening, but Mitchell didn’t seem worried. Jonathan was sure it was a poker face. No cover story would hold up if they were raided. If they were arrested and Pioneer identified, whatever they told the Chinese government would be irrelevant. The MSS would consider proximity to be guilt, and none of them would set foot on United States soil again for a very long time. Jonathan had been in war zones, but he doubted that he had ever been in as much danger as he was this evening.

Mitchell sat at the cherry dining table finishing the remains of his risotto while a plate of pastry fritters waited on the side. Jonathan had tried to beg off the food—his jet-lagged stomach didn’t think it was time to eat—but Mitchell insisted and the analyst took a bowl of gnocchi. Mitchell had ordered frittate for Kyra and Pioneer, and it was keeping warm under a tray cover. Jonathan was sure she would
appreciate the wine. His initial thought had been to wait to order until she arrived—he refused to think in terms of
if
—but he supposed that once Pioneer was in the room, Mitchell wouldn’t want anyone coming to the door.

Jonathan looked at the digital clock on the writing desk by the window. “We’re behind schedule,” Mitchell said.

“We have a schedule?” Jonathan asked.

“Always,” Mitchell said. “Twenty minutes late, but she’s still inside her window. If she doesn’t get here in the next ten minutes, we might have to push everyone back to the next flight.” He set his utensils on the plate, picked up a fritter, and walked over to the window.

There was a knock at the door. Jonathan resisted the urge to answer it, instead letting Mitchell take the job in case there was some private entry protocol he’d arranged. If there was one, it was subtle. The senior NCS officer simply looked through the peephole and opened the door. The woman at the door was shorter than Kyra, with shoulder-length dark hair. She was dressed in casual clothing and dragging a wheeled suitcase behind. She marched past Mitchell and he closed the door to the hallway.

“John, this is Anna Monaghan,” Mitchell said. “She’s with S and T”—the Agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology. “John’s an analyst.”

Anna offered her hand. “Cooke told me about you before I got on the plane.”

“Then you’re a recent import?” Jonathan asked.

“I am,” Anna said. “Just got in. Hate the flight from Dulles. Coming down over Russian airspace drives me up the wall.”

“The Russkies don’t shoot down airliners anymore,” Mitchell said. “And you won’t be here long enough to get lagged. After you do your beauty work on our friend, you’re on the first flight out tomorrow,” Mitchell said.

“A shame you won’t get the suite when we’re done,” Jonathan said.

“I wish,” Anna said. “Same hotel, but I’m six floors down with the common folk.” She scanned the room and looked to Mitchell. “Stryker’s still on the street?”

“Stepped out ninety minutes ago. She’s still got ten minutes,” Mitchell said. “Fifteen before I get really worried.”

“I’ll set up in the bedroom. I need to steal the desk, and I
am
taking a shower.”

“No arguments here,” Mitchell said. The woman rolled her case into the bedroom and closed the sliding door.

Kyra and Pioneer entered the Marriott lobby twenty-two minutes behind schedule. The taxi driver had taken a winding route to find any persistent cars behind, and their surveillance detection run on foot had not turned out any hostiles. It still wasn’t a given that they were alone, but having made it this far was a promising development. Unless the MSS was running a particularly sophisticated operation, waiting to learn the hotel room number so they could arrest Pioneer together with his handler, their odds of escape had risen considerably. She hoped that their body doubles would not have to spend an unpleasant evening in the local lockup. The MSS would not be able to prove that their proximity and similar dress to a known traitor and his escort was sure evidence of participation in a conspiracy, but Kyra doubted that the MSS required proof beyond a reasonable doubt. She suspected that their threshold for conviction dropped as their annoyance level rose, and once they realized that Pioneer was no longer under their watch, the annoyance level would be stratospheric.

Jonathan had been right. She was craving a shot of anything she could lay hands on, knowing this would be a terrible time for it. If the operation went south and Roland and Rebecca went to prison . . . she knew without a doubt that the imprisonment of two fellow officers as the price paid for her sake would drive her down into the bottle.

Kyra cursed herself for letting her mind wander. It was like Venezuela again. She had picked a poor moment for self-examination.
Still not safe.
She exhaled, scanned the lobby, and found the elevators. She led Pioneer away from the front desk toward the lifts and reached for her front pocket. She extracted the disposable cell phone, a low-end Nokia.

She dialed the second number preprogrammed into the phone, which was the chief of station’s number for his own rented disposable phone. Both units were destined for secure disposal, where and how Mitchell hadn’t bothered to tell her. This would be the last call her phone would ever make.

She was surprised to hear Jonathan’s voice on the phone. “We’ve been waiting on you for dinner. Your frittata is cold,” he said. No doubt Mitchell had coached him on what to say. The first sentence was the pass phrase. The second was a bit of a rebuke.
You’re late.