Night Heron (26 page)

But then, just as the wars were at their height, and with them the tide of United States federal dollars and the endless contracts, Shady Creek pivoted. It started buying clever little cyber start-ups, muscular network systems and intelligence support outfits. And recruiting Chinese speakers, not Arabists.

Patterson looked at the websites.
The Shady Creek Group, through its wide portfolio, offers deep industry expertise and critical mission support across multidisciplinary intelligence operations.
A photograph depicted a uniformed American soldier in helmet and black ballistic glasses, next to a smiling elderly woman wearing a robe and headdress, which, while generic, signaled ethnic otherness. A third man holding a clipboard gestured into the distance, into the sunlight, towards a city on a plain, and the soldier and the woman followed his gaze.

Patterson couldn’t sleep. She lay holding herself, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, listening to the city’s vibrational hush, its surging and its falling. She thought of the suited men in the conference room, their lack of affect, the sense of deracination that surrounded them. What was their mission, these quiet men? What was her role in it?

She thought back to certainty she had known. Her last day in
theater. She remembered the dawn, and the thudding and chattering of the helos. She had stood on the flightline, drinking tea from a styrofoam cup. The helos came swinging in to land in great washes of dust, the pale sun behind them. She watched the shadowed figures on the tarmac, hunching beneath the rotors, the
whump whump whump
and the gentle, balletic lift, tilt and turn into the sky towards the mountains. Jenkins had been with her, and Rashid, the snarly little staff sergeant from Bolton, pride of the battalion for his Pashtun, his blizzard of Waziri dialects.

“So we’re losing you, ma’am,” Jenkins had said.

“Losing you to the funnies,” said Rashid. “You won’t like it, ma’am, all those fast cars, Martinis, whatnot. You’ll miss us.”

“I’ll miss you like a sucking chest wound,” she’d said, and they’d laughed. Her flight had been called, and she’d hefted her bergen and her weapon, and waved, and turned and jogged towards the helo.

She threw the duvet off and padded through the flat, checking the front door and windows.

She thought about Granny Poon, the woman’s unease, the unexplained probing of her phone. Someone was trying to beacon her.

Who?

SIS, Vauxhall Cross, London

The Director, Requirements and Production, had a mouthful of brioche when his phone rang. He swallowed quickly and reached for his handkerchief to wipe the crumbs from his mouth. He took a quick swallow of coffee. He’d arrived late this morning and the overnight telegram traffic lay on his desk untouched.

“The Permanent Under-Secretary would like you to come straight over, please. Your car’s waiting.”

They were there when he walked in, the Permanent Under-Secretary, the Special Adviser and minions.

And C, the chief of SIS.

Nobody had told him that C would be at the meeting, but there he was, with his rimless spectacles and thinning hair, folded into his chair like some spindly, dark-eyed predator in its lair, poised for ambush.

The Director of Requirements and Production tried to collect himself.

“Extraordinary,” the Permanent Under-Secretary was saying. “Quite extraordinary.” On his desk a folder marked
TOP SECRET/UKEYES ALPHA/GAMMA
.

The Special Adviser was beaming.

“Cheltenham’s in paroxysms,” he said. “Listen to this.
A formidable penetration, sure to yield unique and priceless insight into China’s information architecture, cyber warfare capability, and the geography of its military-industrial complex.
Honestly, they’re like teenagers discovering pornography.”

Laughter. The Director of Requirements and Production waited.

“But seriously,” said the Permanent Under-Secretary, “everyone’s impressed. I mean the missile stuff is fascinating and important, but the cyber stuff, well. The sheer scale of it.”

He paused.

“And.
And
we now know what those duplicitous shits at China National Century Corporation are doing. Did you see that bit?”

He looked up and peered round the room, a picture of injured innocence.

“They are, apparently, manufacturing corrupted processors and pushing them towards certain American importers. With the intention—the active intention, mark you—of getting them into important bits of American military kit. And they’ve succeeded. Dodgy CNaC chips, gentlemen, with who knows what on them, appear to have made their way into America’s shiny new littoral combat ship. Deliberately.”

Another pause.

“Wait till we tell the Yanks. I’ll enjoy that. Oh, and even the addled cynics at MoD seem to feel the product is not forged. It’s ‘internally consistent,’ they say. And there’s too bloody much of it. You must pass on our congratulations to Roly Yeats.”

“I shall, of course,” the Director of Requirements and Production said.

C was quiet. Now the Special Adviser spoke.

“Might I just bring us straight to the central question
here? Given the extraordinary scope and importance of this penetration, there’s obviously a hope it may yield more. Lots of questions, obviously. And so we wonder what expectation we might realistically have of
STONE CIRCLE
going forward.”

We do, do we?

C spoke for the first time.

“I have given assurances that we can and will review the basis on which this operation was conceived, and we will review whatever arrangements were put in place. I’m sure we’re all agreed that this is an appropriate course of action.”

“I’m sure it is,” said the Director of Requirements and Production. Except, he thought, I will have to tell Hopko that whatever deal she made with her agent is off.

C was there before him, though, working like a scalpel.

“Now we appreciate that assurances were given to those involved, and Roly Yeats has made clear that changing an agent’s expectations at this stage of the game might present problems for the case officers and for the access agent. So I accept the logic that a change in the operational modalities is desirable.”

Modalities?

C continued, looking straight at the Director of Requirements and Production.

“From this point onwards, with regard to the control of Operation
STONE CIRCLE
, we feel it’s appropriate that other resources, external resources, be brought to bear.”

The Permanent Under-Secretary was nodding. The Special Adviser was looking at some notes.

External resources.

The Director of Requirements and Production, for a fraction of a second, sought to compute whose interests C might be serving, but no answer presented itself.

“When should the handover take place?” he asked.

“I rather think it’s already underway, actually,” said C.

The migrant laborers came to the salon earlier now, in the freezing darkness. They wore heavy coats over clothes they didn’t change for days at a time, and which accumulated layers of dried, crumbling mud of a tan color. Their hands were hardened, chapped and split in the cold. They took nips from bottles of sorghum liquor and smoked. Sometimes they left the salon and went straight to work on a night shift, some floodlit construction site, its grinding machinery and whistles going through till dawn. Sometimes they lingered in the salon, silent, reluctant to leave.

Peanut watched the migrant laborers from his stool by the beaded curtain. Though these two men looked less like migrant workers, more like locals, didn’t they, the ones bantering a little with Dandan Mama, winking at the girls, handing round cigarettes. Quite the performers. They seemed to be enjoying their surroundings, taking them in.

Then one of them, the taller one, with a very full head of hair and an enormous, sculpted jaw, turned towards Peanut with a look of recognition. The man smiled, waved a hand. He wore a light-colored coat that came down to his thighs and carried on its chest the motif of a foreign cigarette brand. The coat had a leather collar and looked expensive. The man was tall, but lean, with the angular, hard look to his shoulders and elbows, and the swiftness of movement, that Peanut knew to be dangerous.

The second man was smaller, but also lean. He was less expansive, a quiet, flat look to him; he wore a gray leather jacket, which looked to Peanut’s eye too slight to keep out the winter cold, and slacks. So they had driven here.

Who drove to the Blue Diamond?

Lantern Jaw was moving across the salon now, towards Peanut, his outstretched hands proffering a cigarette packet.

“
Lai! Chou yi gen!
” Come on. Have a cigarette. The man’s Mandarin was northern, educated.

Peanut took one. Lantern Jaw lit it.

“It’s good to see you,” he said.

Peanut remained seated, said nothing.
So this is it.

“We’ve got things to talk about.” The man was towering over Peanut now.

“Lucky us,” said Peanut.

“Let’s go outside for a moment.” The man nodded in the direction of the door. “Put a coat on, won’t you. It’s cold.”

Peanut looked around. Just Lantern Jaw and Flatface. No sirens, flashing lights, screaming uniforms. When did they start arresting people discreetly?

“Should I bring my things with me?” His voice had gone quiet.

Lantern Jaw leaned down. He was actually smiling.

“That’s not what’s happening. Come outside. I just need to talk to you and then we’ll leave you to your charming companions and your business.”

Peanut stood, took his anorak from a hook and followed Lantern Jaw to the salon’s front door. Flatface smiled at Dandan Mama and made a
we’ll be right back
gesture. Dandan Mama’s simpering had given way to a frozen look.

They stood on the steps. Lantern Jaw looked up and down the street, and faced Peanut. Flatface stood behind him.

“You’re a very successful man,” said Lantern Jaw.

“Really,” said Peanut.

“Yes, very.”

Peanut narrowed his eyes, searched the man’s face, found nothing.

“Who are you?”

“We’re your friends.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you are.”

“Night heron,” said Flatface, from behind him.

Lantern Jaw nodded, smiled, pointed towards Flatface.

“There you are, what he said.”

Peanut exhaled.

“You’re under new management,” said Lantern Jaw.

Peanut looked down for a moment and stroked his chin.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Of course you don’t. That’s okay. Just listen for one more second. Don’t contact anyone, and I mean anyone. Don’t go near the British journalist. Don’t go near the professor. We’re dealing with him directly. You just stay put. You’ll receive further instructions.”

Lantern Jaw stooped a little, bringing his head level with Peanut’s, looked questioningly, as a parent might wait for a child’s acknowledgement of some unpalatable instruction.

“
Hao ma?
” Okay?

Peanut shrugged, looked away.

Then, from behind, a hand hard on the back of his neck, a surprising sensation, and Flatface’s voice in his ear.

“What he means is, things have changed. You will get what you are owed, maybe more, but not yet. And you’ll do exactly what we fucking tell you, when we tell you.”

Flatface’s thumb had found a spot between shoulder and neck that was the source of what Peanut could only understand as a sort of primal pain. The pain shot downwards into his middle back, and upwards into his head and eye, in a way he had never experienced before.

So. Relax. The lesson learned a hundred times at the hands of the thunders. When they’ve got you, relax.

He allowed his shoulders to slump, his head to loll back. The pain lessened a little. Peanut allowed his knees to bend, let his center of gravity fall.

And then Peanut made a claw with his right hand as it dangled by his side and bent back his hand a little at the wrist, so that when he brought it up very fast, and simultaneously snapped his
knees straight, the thrust had the force of his body behind it, and the heel of his hand rammed into that enormous jaw making contact just under the chin. Lantern Jaw’s mouth snapped shut—his teeth made a hollow
sneck
sound—and his head went back. He didn’t go down and Peanut wasn’t surprised, but he did stagger back, disoriented and groping for balance. Peanut was already bringing the elbow down, again very fast, and turning hard to his right, so the elbow made contact at speed with a spot just below Flatface’s sternum. Flatface made a
dugh
sound. His mouth worked, but no further sound came out. For good measure, Peanut now raised his elbow, and moving with the weight of his entire trunk brought it down at a point where Flatface’s shoulder met his neck. Flatface was on one knee now, but still there. Peanut took three quick steps and placed distance between himself and the two of them. He had the knife drawn, palmed.

Lantern Jaw had one hand out, gesturing. He didn’t look hurt, or even very shaken.

“That was unfortunate,” he said.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Peanut.

Lantern Jaw had a finger inside his mouth. He brought it out, looking for blood.

“Just do what I told you to do,” said Lantern Jaw. “I know you will.”

Peanut circled as Lantern Jaw walked carefully around him, staying out of range of the knife, and took hold of the lapel of Flatface’s leather jacket.

“Off we go. Let’s leave him to it,” said Lantern Jaw.

“You cunt,” said Flatface.

Beijing

A book. A concise and timely portrait of the Followers, and a trenchant analysis of the state’s response. For publication.

For cover.

Ting sat at the laptop, spooling through, translating as she went. Mangan mentally edited and typed. Hours and hours of interviews with Followers going back two, three years, the fragility and tension in their voices growing with each passing month, with each mass arrest. The bureau phone rang. Ting paused and reached for the receiver.

“
Wei?
”

Mangan could hear the caller, male, strident. Ting was bemused, held the receiver an inch from her ear. She looked at Mangan.

“It’s for Mr. Mang An.”

“Who is it?”

“He doesn’t say. But he’s insistent.”

Mangan took the receiver. Ting smiled
good luck.

“This is Philip Mangan.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

Mangan tensed.

“What do you mean?”

“With my management. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Ting was watching him.

“They say I have new management.”

There was a silence. Then Peanut, angry.

“Meet me, Mang An, now. Same place, by the dancers. Now.”

The line went dead. Mangan replaced the receiver, felt himself touching his hand to his cheek.

“What was that?” said Ting.

“It was, I’m not sure.”

“You knew him.”

“It’s nothing.”

She shook her head.

“No, it’s not nothing. Is there some trouble?”

“Really, it’s fine. I might have to go out for a bit.”

Mangan stood, picked up his mobile phone and walked on to the balcony, closing the door behind him. He dialed Charteris in his office, but got only voicemail.

There were no dancers that gray, late morning, just relentless, lurching traffic.

Mangan waited by the north gate of the Workers’ Stadium. He stood behind a plane tree to get out of a bitter wind. Peanut arrived four minutes later, stood by the gate looking around. Mangan stepped out, gestured with his head. Peanut walked over.

“They went to the sub-source.” Peanut spoke quickly, his eyes flickering, scanning the pavement.

“What? Who did?”

“These fucking people. I don’t know who they are. The same ones that told me I was under new management. God in heaven. New
fucking
management.”

“All right, all right, calm down,” said Mangan.

Peanut turned and fastened his eyes on Mangan.

“Mang An, if you ever tell me to calm down again I will rip out your liver.”

Mangan closed his eyes, exhaled.

“How do you know this? Did the sub-source call you?”

“He called me at two this morning, weeping down the fucking phone. Accusing me. ‘You said it would be a one-time job. You said it would be over soon.’ ”

“These people, what have they told him to do?”

Peanut shook his head.

“They gave him another gadget, Mang An. Another drive. Told him to go back and do it again.”

“Wait, do what again?”

“What do you mean do what again? Go back and stick the drive in the fucking network. Only this time at the General Armaments Department.”

Mangan swallowed.

“Will he do it?”

“This is not a very robust individual, Mang An.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him not to do it and to give me the drive.”

“
What?
Why, for God’s sake?”

“I went and got it. Got a cab to his house.”

Peanut pulled his hand from his pocket. He opened his fist. A drive lay in the palm of his hand: black, bulbous, undisguised.

“Jesus Christ. What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to shove it up your arse. I want my deal, Mang An. Get it for me.”

The black car arrived in the early evening. It drove once, slowly, past the house, then turned and came back. The car pulled into the driveway.

It was the professor’s wife who’d answered the door, an
enquiring smile, friendly woman. They’d asked to see him. She’d said, come in out of the cold. Wasn’t much warmer inside. Huge house, one of those winding staircases. He was hovering in the background, a shadow, and when they walked into the reception room, he was already leaning against a wall, all trembly. And when they said they had some routine questions, he found it hard to reply, his mouth twisting and working. His wife had looked at him as if he might be ill, walked over and put a hand on his arm, which he pushed away, his eyes still on them.

So they’d waited a bit, slowed things down, just to see what would happen, sat down, took out notebooks, files. He wouldn’t sit, said he’d stand. He was desperate. And then when they said could he confirm he had such and such a document in his possession, numbered 157, that was his copy wasn’t it and where was it please, he was wide-eyed, terrified. He managed to get out that it was in his safe, in his office at the Launch Vehicle Academy. And then they just left it for a bit longer, didn’t say anything. And he started asking, is there a problem? And when they ventured, well, perhaps you’d better tell us who you’ve been showing it to, his legs started to shake, and he was holding on to the big fancy fireplace for support. And by this time his wife was in tears, saying, what is it, what is it? And they said, well, perhaps you’d better come with us, and he just crumbled, started weeping.

Investigator Han, still at the trestle table, sat back, looked at the ceiling. He reached forward, took a celebratory cigarette from the pack and lit it. He took out his mobile phone and dialed the personal number of the Deputy Director of the 9th Bureau.

“You wanted speed, Deputy Director.”

“Has the search team gone in?”

“Yes, Deputy Director.”

“And the suspect?”

“On his way to the villa, Deputy Director.”

“When will the interrogation begin?”

“We will let him stew for twenty-four hours. So tomorrow. In the night.”

“Investigator Han.”

“Yes, Deputy Director.”

“If the interrogation yields evidence of espionage, you will make an early determination as to whether he can be turned.”

“Yes, Deputy Director. I think he is, perhaps, too fragile.”

“If he cannot be turned, then break him.”

Professor Wen Jinghan, aeronautical engineer, specialist in launch technology, recipient of numerous academic honours, longtime Party member, trusted servant of the state, naked, with his hands behind his head, his thin, hairless limbs crimped into a squat, his penis dangling. The pain in his thighs and groin had grown slowly through the first hour, until it was impossible to ignore. Now it was all-consuming, a red-hot burn that had him clench-jawed and close to sobbing. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking for relief.

“Stay still,” said the guard, quietly. He wore a police uniform.

The room was bare but for a chair and table. It was lit by a single neon strip light and was very cold. A heavy brown curtain covered the window.

They had said nothing in the car, so neither had he. He’d sat in the back, between two of them. They drove around the ring road and out into the Western Hills. They slowed and passed through heavy steel gates, pulled up at a villa, and he was gently handed out of the car. And when he couldn’t stand up, they put their forearms in his armpits and walked him over gravel. It was late, very dark, quite clear. He could see some stars. You had to come to the Western Hills to see stars. He smelled pine resin and earth.

The villa was low slung and white-walled, fringed by shrubs.
He had affected a normal tone of voice, or what he thought to be one.

“You may be assured of my complete cooperation,” he said.

They didn’t respond, walked him in through the front door, into a hallway of brown tiles. There was another man waiting, older, balding, a look tinged with understanding, not unkind. One of the men from the car went over to him and whispered into his ear. The older man nodded, then spoke to the professor.

“My name is Investigator Han,” he said. “Professor, I must tell you this now. You must confess straight away. If you confess, you can expect lenient treatment. If you do not confess, you may expect us to be very severe.”

The professor was retreating into himself and the man’s words seemed to come from a distance, and to bring with them a sense of parody.
They really say that? When you are arrested?
They really do.

“You may be assured of my cooperation.” The words left him of their own accord.

The investigator was talking again.

“I am going to leave you now for a little while, and then we will talk.”

The professor nodded. I understand.

And that was a cold lifetime ago. Now he squatted on this icy tiled floor. The tendons in his thighs and groin were racked, the pain spreading into his stomach as a dull nausea. Such a simple device!

The door opened. The guard turned and stood. It was him, the investigator. Might the situation now change? It might. The investigator was sitting at the table, pulling the chair in with a dry scrape. Now he was speaking.

“Are you ready, Professor?”

Wen Jinghan nodded, swaying now.

The investigator gestured to the guard, who walked over,
placed his hands under the professor’s arms and lifted him forward, into a kneeling position. A flood of relief. The professor kneeled with his hands on his knees, and began to shiver.

“What is your name?”

“My surname is Wen. My given name is Jinghan.”

“And what is your position?”

“I am a professor of aeronautical engineering. I hold a position at the Launch Vehicle Academy and a position at the General Armaments Department.”

“Is it also true that you hold a position as Technical Adviser to the Leading Small Group on Military Affairs?”

“It is true, yes.”

“And in your position as Technical Adviser, you receive copies of classified reports detailing developments in all aspects of military-industrial development. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Do you, or did you, have in your possession a copy of the report entitled
A Preliminary Report on Certain Questions Relating to Second Stage Failure in Launch Vehicle DF-41
, with the cover number 157?”

“Yes, I have it in my possession.”

“To whom did you show the report numbered 157?”

The professor took a deep breath, and the words again seemed to leave of themselves: thin words, without weight, fragile.

“I want to be clear how all this came about. It is, perhaps, not what it seems. I think I should start from the beginning.”

The investigator nodded to the guard again. The guard bent over and rummaged in a small light-green haversack at his feet, lifting out a black baton, fourteen or sixteen inches in length, with a loop attached to one end. The guard flexed his hand, passed it through the loop and took hold of the baton. He came and stood behind the kneeling professor. Wen Jinghan felt the end of the baton placed firmly against his lower back.

The sensation that followed resembled being kicked very hard at the base of the spine. But the impact of the kick grew and surged through his entire body, a hot
whump
, forging up his back and into his head, his eyes. He felt as if suspended in the air for a moment, then an impact as if he had fallen from a height on to the floor. He felt himself gagging, saw his hands jerking spastically in front of him. He lay on his side.

The investigator was speaking again.

“To whom did you show the report numbered 157?”

“Forced. Of it. Forced.” The words felt like leather twisted tight.

“To whom did you show the report numbered 157?”

“Knew. Of it. Huasheng huasheng.”

“Say the name again.”

“Li Huasheng huasheng huasheng.”

They left him. His limbs stopped the involuntary jerking over the course of what he thought to be about a quarter of an hour. He crawled to a corner and vomited noisily.

They came back.

“Explain quickly now, Professor. Why did you show the document to this Li Huasheng?”

“He forced me to. He wanted to sell it.”

“All right, who did he intend to sell it to?”

The professor was breathing hard. He had, he realized, bitten the inside of his cheek and there was blood around his mouth.

“We will go over all this in detail, many more times. But you must tell me the essentials now. It is very important. Who did this Li Huasheng intend to sell the document to?”

Silence. Not a conscious strategy to resist, no, simply a realization that the moment he uttered the word everything was finished, gone.

The guard was standing behind him, leaning over, the baton was higher up on his back this time.

“No. No. No.” The words came out on a rising tone, the
professor’s vocal cords tensing for the shock. He was arching, curling away from the baton, one hand in the air, like a schoolchild seeking to answer a question.

“It was the British.”

“British? Who?”

“He had contacts with the British. He knew a journalist.”

“Who’s the journalist?”

“I don’t know.”

“He wanted to give the document to a journalist? So the journalist could report its contents? Is that what you mean?”

The professor was silent.

“You must answer, Professor. Really, you must.”

“It wasn’t for reporting.”

“So what was it for?”

The professor had leaned forward, his palms flat on the floor. His silver hair hung around his face. He spat something out, listlessly.

“The journalist works for British Intelligence,” he said.

There was a short pause.

“Tell me now, Professor, quickly, how you contact this Li Huasheng.”

“There’s a number.”

“Where?”

“Look in my writing desk. At my home. Drawer on the left. Taped to the underside.”