An American Spy (43 page)

Two soldiers leaped out of the back and helped Leticia down, then assisted her to the steps. She was still in her black dress, with the addition of a soldier’s heavy green coat covering her bandaged shoulder. Once they released her, she began to take it off, but the soldier shook his head and gave her a slight bow, saying something. Leticia gave an answer, flashed one of her notorious smiles, and kissed his cheek before beginning her ascent.

“Well, look at her,” said Alexandra.

It took three hours to reach Hong Kong, where they took rooms at the Regal Airport Hotel to wait for their 8:00
A
.
M
. flight to Tokyo. Milo fell asleep immediately and was woken by Alexandra banging on his door. She gave him fresh clothes that were a size too big, then asked if he’d seen Leticia. “I’ve been asleep,” he said.

“Well, she’s not here.”

“Maybe she’ll meet us at the gate.”

She didn’t, though, and they left without her.

In Tokyo, Alexandra waited with Milo for his connecting flight to Seattle, and then to Denver. “You should come, too,” he told her.

She shook her head. “I’d rather pull a Leticia Jones.” Then, “They’ll be waiting for you, you know.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

Alexandra smiled and took his arm in the crook of her elbow. “If there’s one thing our father taught me, it’s that we always have a choice.”

8

He couldn’t get Milo Weaver’s statement out of his head. As he sat in the office, trying to feel joy over his newfound security, as he drove home and took that epic elevator ride to the thirtieth floor, and even as he told Sung Hui that he was taking her out to whatever restaurant she wanted, he could not stop thinking that it was true. Alan Drummond
would
try to kill him and, failing that, kill Sung Hui. It was how the world was. Things change. Nothing remains. The things we do not deserve are taken from us.

Over exquisite plates of dim sum at Sampan, they discussed a friend’s impending wedding, and the groom’s desire for a nontraditional ceremony. “Her parents are about to explode!” she said, laughing, and Zhu thought that if he could laugh like that, laugh with that same unhindered pleasure, he might just make a claim to deserving her. He tried but failed.

When they got back to their building at eleven thirty, Zhu noticed an unmarked Ministry of Public Security Audi parked outside, and in the lobby found a pair of young men with ministry IDs who asked him to come with them. An angry look crossed Sung Hui’s face, the unspoken accusation that he’d known this interruption would come, but he professed his ignorance as he walked her to the elevator and kissed her again.

They were just couriers. They knew nothing of their job beyond its definition: bring a single man to the ministry headquarters on East Chang’an. Not to the front door—no. Around the rear to a quiet entrance, where only the guards would be watching. That was when the worry began to flow freely through Xin Zhu. The young men took him to a small door, knocked, and waited until it was opened from inside by two uniformed ministry soldiers. They then left Xin Zhu to his fate, not even signing a release form, which was perhaps the most terrifying detail. When a Chinese soldier ignores paperwork, you know there is going to be trouble.

After being relieved of his cell phone, he looked into the faces of the soldiers, one of whom looked very familiar. A big man with a face of clay. “Do I know you?” he asked, but the soldier said nothing, only took him down a corridor of empty offices to a stairwell that led deeper into the earth. They stopped briefly at a metal detector beside a glassed-in desk. A guard looked up from his paperwork and, after a moment’s examination, waved his hand for them to continue. They went through a steel door and down into the old stone basement of East Chang’an, where the cells lay.

Once he’d been locked inside one, he settled on the floor and, briefly, thought of 1969, when, as an eighteen-year-old mountain boy used to life in the Qinling range, he entered his first prison cell, corralled by boys and girls eager to teach him the errors of possessing a middle-school education. They’d come early, village kids he recognized, and pulled him out of bed, chanting Red Guard slogans. At first, he’d shared his cell with two others, but by the afternoon there were twenty. Tuan Gang, the asthmatic schoolteacher whose education had gotten Xin Zhu into this trouble, didn’t survive the night, which, perhaps, was a blessing for the old man, for he never would have survived the next five years of farming the hard, selfish earth of Inner Mongolia. Nor would he have been able, as Zhu had been, to learn new lessons. Such as how to speak appropriately in public while creating an elaborate internal architecture of deceit, of finding ways of holding on to your individuality while showing all the outward signs of becoming one with the group. He certainly would not have received, after five years of labor, a visit from recruiters of the Central Investigation Division with a promise of a new life. No, Tuan Gang would have fallen over in those barren fields within three months and would never have lived to see what his favorite pupil was to become.

They had let him keep his watch, and so when the door finally opened he knew that four hours had passed. It was nearly four thirty. He hadn’t panicked, for he knew what this was, and he knew that Yang Qing-Nian would stride in, barking threats. What would those threats consist of? Yang Qing-Nian was young and brash, but he was no idiot. If he was confident enough to pluck Xin Zhu from his home, he must have something powerful at hand. Zhu, however, couldn’t figure out what it could be.

So it was a surprise when Sun Bingjun opened the door and, as Zhu had done with Milo Weaver, brought a guard carrying two worn benches. Slowly, Zhu climbed to his feet. Sun Bingjun sat down, threading his fingers together in front of his stomach, and then Zhu sat. Once the guard was gone, Sun Bingjun said, “How are you feeling, Xin Zhu?”

“Not well.”

“I went to see Sung Hui, to put her mind at ease.”

Zhu looked up at him, trying to read intent in his features, but Sun Bingjun was a virtuoso of the passive expression. “How is she?”

“Worried, of course. I told her you would be home by tomorrow.” Sun Bingjun opened his hands. “I hope I wasn’t telling her a lie.”

It was an odd thing to say, and disconcerting to hear, but as Zhu stared back, wrestling with the possibility that Sun Bingjun’s promise to Sung Hui might prove true, it came to him. It was instinct more than logic; for only after the realization hit him did he work backward through the things he knew to see if it was justified. The visits from members of the Department of Tourism, the nearly unbelievable slip by Stuart Jackson to Liu Xiuxiu, the fact that Sun Bingjun was clearly not the washed-up drunk he had so long pretended to be, and the remarkably timed letter from Bo Gaoli, along with his wife’s murder.

Then he remembered the face of the soldier who had brought him to this cell—Sun Bingjun’s driver was a ministry soldier with access to East Chang’an’s cells.

He shifted, his legs aching, and moved his hands to his knees. He said, “You’re here to make an offer.”

Sun Bingjun just stared back.

Zhu said, “You helped me corner Wu Liang in order to divert attention from yourself.”

“I did nothing,” said Sun Bingjun. “You collected evidence. Hua Yuan called you before she was killed. I have nothing to do with any of this.”

“Was your driver sitting with her when she called me?”

Sun Bingjun held onto his lifesaving face.

“Smart,” Zhu said, for it really was. Sun Bingjun hired a ministry guard, who was able to get rid of Bo Gaoli. Bo Gaoli, who knew what Sun Bingjun was. Aloud, Zhu said, “Why didn’t Bo Gaoli tell Wu Liang about you once he was locked in here?”

Sun Bingjun only blinked.

“Maybe because Wu Liang was my enemy, and he was afraid that Wu Liang would find a way to bury it, in order to hinder me. Perhaps he assumed Wu Liang would instead arrest him for blackmail—for, of course, he’d been extorting you. Or maybe he believed you would save him in order to save yourself. Whatever the reason, you made sure he didn’t live to change his mind.”

Sun Bingjun’s face was remarkable to behold. Nothing fazed him. It was how you survived for years—for decades, perhaps—as an agent of capitalist aggression. Add to it a reputation for drunkenness, and you were impervious to suspicion.

Zhu waited, expecting something, but Sun Bingjun wasn’t interested in elaboration. Yet he made no move to leave. Zhu said, “What about the letter?” for it was the final, wild piece of evidence that, in retrospect, showed how desperate Sun Bingjun had become. “Bo Gaoli’s prints were on the first and last pages—does that mean those pages were the actual letter he was writing to me? And everything in between, where the mole is named as Wu Liang, was the fabrication? That’s sloppy, Sun Bingjun. That’s the cracked brick that will bring down the whole house.”

Sun Bingjun nodded, as if he’d made an excellent point, and finally spoke. “True, Xin Zhu. All it takes is a closer look at the letter—the one that you called to tell me about. In the committee meeting, I said that you were outside the house before I arrived, and you did not correct me. It’s on record. How do I know what you did before I arrived?”

Zhu thought back, stopping at points along the way. The murders of Bo Gaoli and Hua Yuan. The committee meetings where Sun Bingjun had stepped up to ensure Zhu was given the time to keep pushing forward. The encouragement he’d given Zhu, insisting that he kill the agents in Hong Kong. “They know something,” said Zhu.

Sun Bingjun blinked at him questioningly.

“Milo Weaver and Leticia Jones. One or both of them know something. You wanted me to kill them to silence them.”

Finally, the reserve broke, and Sun Bingjun smiled. He leaned forward and patted the side of Xin Zhu’s thigh. “As long as you believe it, I am happy.”

“Where are they now?”

“On a plane. Heading home.” Sun Bingjun raised his hands, palms out. “That is what you asked me to do with them, isn’t it?”

Zhu exhaled, flipping rapidly through everything. Gradually, it all fit into place. There had always been a plot to attack Xin Zhu, but not in retaliation for the Tourists. It was to neutralize his hunt for Sun Bingjun. By orchestrating the illusion of an attack, they gave Wu Liang ammunition to go after Zhu, which gave Zhu no choice but to retaliate. Even the conspirators had become involved in the game, Stuart Jackson allowing himself to be seduced, then letting slip a few crucial words to Liu Xiuxiu. This old man had worked hardest to save himself—two murders, and years of maintaining a mask for everyone. “Weaver and Jones don’t know anything, do they?”

“They never will,” said Sun Bingjun. “You can be assured of that.”

“I don’t care if they do,” he said.

“You will.”

“What about Alan Drummond?”

“Funny,” said Sun Bingjun, raising an index finger. “I did tell them that you were running him, but he had already confessed it to them. His disappearance in London was not part of any plan, though. The same is true of his appearance and disappearance in Hong Kong. What they suspect is that in London he was running away from them, not you.”

“Why?”

Blank-faced, Sun Bingjun said, “Because all Alan Drummond has ever wanted is your death, and they were taking that dream from him. Never take away a man’s dream unless you’re prepared to deal with the consequences. Of course, they never told him why you couldn’t be killed.”

He’s going to kill you, you know. And if he can’t do that, he’ll go after your young wife.

“I lost four men in Hong Kong. They were good men.”

“Aren’t they all?” Sun Bingjun asked. “I’m afraid there’s more, though. The pretty girl you sent to Washington, D.C., was found dead in the Potomac River, an apparent suicide.”

Zhu rubbed his face. He no longer wanted to think about the tedium of the plot. Here in this cell, those things no longer mattered. What really mattered was that the bodies had been stacked in order to protect this old drunk, who now only wanted to show that he had Zhu’s future in his hands. There could only be one reason for this performance: He was going to ask for something. Zhu said, “You want me to play along. Is that it? Convict Wu Liang?”

“You were already playing along, Xin Zhu. A couple more days and you would have happily demanded Wu Liang’s execution.” He shook his head. “You see, it may be that I’m not as helpless as I look, but this,” he said, opening his hands to display the thin body inside his loose suit, “does not lie. I’m tired. I’m on the cusp of retirement, and that’s how it should be. I’ve served the people long enough. What I would like is for you to take over my position.”

It was an odd thing to hear. A promotion to the ranks of the Politburo? Then he stopped himself. That, obviously, wasn’t what Sun Bingjun was talking about.

Sun Bingjun stared, waiting for him to understand.

How long had Sun Bingjun worked for the Americans? Had there been any outward signs that they’d all missed? Was there some stuffed bank account in Switzerland that, after his retirement, he would sail off to enjoy? Zhu wondered these things to avoid thinking about the subject at hand. He said, “You’ve never really served the people, have you?”

A sigh of impatience. “Don’t lecture me on morality, Xin Zhu. Your history won’t allow it.”

“My history has always been guided by my ideology.”

“Your recent history, Xin Zhu, has been guided by your guilt. The massacre of the Tourists? Tell me, who sent Delun to Africa to play around in the sand? Had you slept with her before that point, or was getting rid of him only the first step in her seduction? And when the Americans killed him, what were you thinking? Don’t tell me you were a father enraged by your son’s murder, because that’s only part of the story. You were relieved that your son would never return to find out that you had stabbed him in the back.”

Zhu felt sickness building up, deep in his intestines. His vision muddied by tears and swollen blood vessels, he could no longer see Sun Bingjun clearly, but he could hear the old man breathing heavily. “Is that your assessment?” Zhu asked. “Or theirs?”