Night Heron (8 page)

Charteris saved the telegram and punched a series of keys on the console. Some red LEDs blinked on the server, and the telegram, encrypted, was gone.

The telegram arrived in London late afternoon ZULU, or UK time. Decrypted, it was directed to a section of the Secret Intelligence Service known as P/C, which stood for Production/China. In the P section the telegram was read by an Intelligence Officer, who sat straight-backed in a gray cubicle before two computer screens angled in such a way that the wandering gaze of a passing colleague might not see what was displayed upon them, and a computer tower that had been carefully modified to ensure no electromagnetic leakage.

Patterson marked the telegram for distribution and attention the following day. Then she read it again and sat back in her chair.

Curious, this one, she thought. Nothing here that fitted the protocols of any current or recent operation, or at least none she was aware of. And what’s clever, sardonic Charteris doing tarting about with a journalist?

She stood and stretched to her full, considerable, height, flexed her shoulders.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll do the traces.

She logged off, cleared her desk, slid her files into a black safe, and, to satisfy one of the Service’s more absurd rules, double-checked that her worktop was clear of even a single scrap of paper.

She walked from the building into a cool, fine drizzle, a dull London twilight, quickly falling to darkness. She walked fast across Vauxhall Bridge, the rain beading on her wool coat, the river black beneath her.

The Tube was packed and leadenly slow and she stood the whole way, and changed carriages twice, just to make sure, as was her habit. She was alone.

At Archway, the little terraced house was silent, and she
climbed the stairs in darkness to her flat, let herself in. The place was cold. She turned the heating up and stood for a moment, looking from the kitchen window. London was spread out before her, bathing in its orange sodium glow. She dropped her bag, turned the light on, walked through to the bedroom. The flat was warming now, ticking and creaking. She stood in front of the mirror and took off her black business suit, the cropped jacket, the sensible trousers, and hung them up carefully. She pulled her halter top over her head, smoothed her hair, pulled it back off her forehead and crimped it tight into a bun, the way she’d worn it in the army, beneath her beret. In her underwear she surveyed herself, looked for failings, loss of muscle tone, slackening in those wide shoulders, creeping flab beneath the taut dark skin. Her army years had given her core and upper body a power that was hard to maintain now. The punishing pace of life as an Intelligence Officer of SIS did nothing to help, its unpredictability, its long hours in the glow of the screen, the jolts of stress from unexpected directions. She bent from the waist, tried to touch the palms of her hands to the floor, hung there exhaling, then dropped to front support position and attempted a few half-hearted press-ups. She had a sense of something leaking away from her, something to be gathered in, regained.

She showered and pulled on a blue toweling dressing gown, put a frozen quiche in the microwave, poured a glass of rioja to the brim. She ate standing in the kitchen, the fork rattling against the plastic tray. She reflected on her day. She had reviewed an approach by officers of Tokyo Station to a Chinese diplomat with a view to possible recruitment; she had distributed a brief report on the fate of a Chinese general found passing documents to Taiwanese intelligence: he was shot; and she had read the odd telegram from Beijing Station, which nagged at her.

Beijing

Peanut put on his jacket and shirt and slacks and shoes and overcoat and worried in front of the bathroom mirror. The clothes were new and synthetic against his weathered, fibrous skin. They looked unnatural. It was twenty-six days since he had emerged dripping from the gravel pit.

He proceeded down the corridor and through the beaded curtain that would, he knew, expose him to further examination. Sure enough, Dandan Mama and Chef were there, sat warming their hands around mugs of tea. It was a bright cold morning, the metallic surfaces of the salon gleamed in the sunlight and the steam rose from the mugs. Their eyes followed him through the salon as he headed for the door. Chef smirked, his rheumy eyes shining.

“Is it a wedding?”

Dandan Mama laughed. But he was through the front door and gone quickly. The street was uncomfortable and he kept his eyes down. Move.

A longish walk to a subway station, made longer by his cutting back on himself twice and stopping at a fast food joint, to see if
anybody stopped with him. No one did, that he could tell. He moved with the morning crowd down the steps into the Metro station. At the kiosk he fumbled. Change? How much? Fare card? A few stares. A blowsy uniformed attendant with bright lipstick and tattooed eyebrows, frowning, jostled him to the turnstiles. Peanut sensed his own lack of congruence, the new clothes, the missing assurance, and knew others sensed it too.

He stepped on to the escalator, the slow, even descent, monitored, he now noticed, by a camera mounted on the ceiling, each and every face passing slowly through its field of vision. Look down? Too late.

Forty minutes on the subway. He changed carriages repeatedly.

At the Pingguoyuan terminus in the city’s far west, he emerged into the cold, glistening morning, the Western Hills rising up in front of him. A rattletrap white minibus—
FINE TOURISTIC AND BEAUTY TEMPLES
stenciled in red on the door—for twelve yuan would drop him at the Jie Tai Temple, the driver beckoning from his window. But he took public bus 931, slower, less memorable.

By nine, he was climbing the stone steps into the temple complex. A weekday, and cold, so few visitors. Deep ocher pavilions amid gnarled trees, dank moss cascading down the walls, paths of flagstones sprouting weeds, but all in much better repair than he remembered. The last time he was here the temple was a curiosity, a place for picnics, a long bicycle ride from the university campus. He remembered
baozi
and warm beer from the bottle, the whirring cicadas of summer. Now, however, the temple seemed to be regaining its original purpose. He entered a dark pavilion. Inside, atop an altar, a golden Maitreya, pungent pink sticks of smoldering incense and some oranges. He stepped out into the courtyard. No one. Silence, wind in the trees.

On, to the north-west corner of the complex. Through a
shadowed gateway, a glimpse of a huge marble altar. The Temple of the Ordination Altar, he remembered, where monks of the Pure Land School had been ordained for centuries. And, good heavens, there was one now. Peanut caught a glimpse of an orange robe and a shaved head, half-running towards a shabby low brick structure by the temple wall, sandals flapping, clutching a styrofoam lunch box. He wondered at the return of monks, of belief.

He stood for a moment. In front of him was the rear gate. It led out into pine trees on the sloping rocky hillside. Peanut walked a way into the trees, and, not far from a soaring, ancient pine, sat down, lit a cigarette and waited.

He sat for an hour or so on the soft pine needles. Until, hurrying along the temple wall, just this side of furtive, came a man with a distinguished look, the billowing silver hair a little less fulsome now, perhaps, but still to the collar. Those finely drawn features, the delicate mouth, a mouth made for the expression of subtlety, for fine distinctions.

Perhaps twenty meters from Peanut, the man stopped and bent at the base of a pine. From his bag he removed a packet of incense sticks, some peaches, some packets of red spirit money and what appeared to be an entire roast duck. Peanut sat still and watched the man. Then, slowly, Peanut drew from his pocket the little plastic bag cinched at the top with a rubber band that he had carried all these years. He took out the yellowed newspaper clipping with its mottled, smeary image, as if to confirm what he already knew.

The man in the ancient photograph was now kneeling a short distance away from him, taking a lighter, igniting a fistful of incense sticks, planting them in the ground amid the pine needles. Beside the incense he placed the fruit, and next to the fruit, reverently, the duck. He clasped his hands before him and bowed three times. He mouthed something Peanut couldn’t
hear. He lit the spirit money, which burned and tumbled across the forest floor, the smoke acrid on the cold air. As the spirit money smoldered and died, the distinguished man sat back on his heels, a half-smile on his face. He looked reflective.

Now, thought Peanut. He stood.

“Wen Jinghan!” he called.

The distinguished man, startled, looked up, started to get to his feet. Peanut walked towards him, arms out in welcome, his best imitation of astonishment and gratification all over his face.

“Jinghan, you came.” Peanut kept moving forward. The distinguished man was looking hard at him, frowning, standing straight now, assertive.

“I’m sorry, who is it?”

“It’s me. Li Huasheng.”

The distinguished man reeled, almost physically, but recovered fast.

“Huasheng! Good God. Is that you?”

“Yes! I knew I would find you here. Today.” Peanut grinned like a madman, gestured towards the incense, the duck.

“You remembered. My father.”

“Of course I remembered. I came here with you to scatter his ashes, didn’t I? You said you’d always come. Every year. And here you are. I admire that, Jinghan, very much. You are truly a good son, a filial son.”

The silver-haired man was gathering himself, Peanut could see. They stood perhaps six feet apart, Peanut with his arms out, as if on the verge of attempting to embrace Professor Wen Jinghan, his old, treasured friend. Or perhaps to crush the life out of him. The distinguished man was tensed, ready to retreat fast.

“So you’re…
back
, Huasheng.”

“Yes, I am. Back.”

“Well. This is a surprise.” Peanut heard, behind the words, the rush of calculation. The distinguished man’s eyes flickered
up and down, took in the odd jacket, the cheap shoes. “A wonderful surprise.”

“We’ve so much to talk about, Jinghan.” Peanut’s face was a rictus, now.

Wen Jinghan looked levelly back at him, spoke quietly.

“It’s so strange. I hadn’t heard you’d… been released.”

“Well. That’s quite a story.”

“Well, it must be. And one I want to hear.” Wen Jinghan nodded.

A pause. Peanut had harbored faint, ridiculous hopes that their long friendship might still have some life to it, but this was going nowhere. To hell with it.

“Well, do you know, it’s probably a story I’m not going to tell you.” Peanut dropped his arms. And the smile. Wen Jinghan took a step back and slightly to the side.

“Listen carefully now, Jinghan. Because things are going to start moving fast. Are you still at the Launch Vehicle Academy?”

“I don’t know what things you’re talking about. And I suggest
you
listen carefully.”

Peanut spoke quietly. “Answer the question.”

“Do you need help, Huasheng? I have resources. I can help you. But you will not threaten me.”

Peanut stepped forward and gripped the professor’s arm. Hard. Wen Jinghan looked down, as if the power in Peanut’s big hand made him fully cognizant of the differences that had grown between them.

Peanut spoke into his ear. “Twenty years. In the desert. Twenty
years
. I never gave you up. I never gave anyone up. And yes, you will help me.”

Wen Jinghan licked his lips. “This will not work.”

“Yes, it will. Because if it doesn’t, I am telling them everything. Who we were. What we did.”

The other man summoned a contemptuous laugh, but in it Peanut heard weakening.

“They would shoot you as well as me, Huasheng.”

“But they won’t find me.”

A pause. Peanut tightened his grip still further. Wen Jinghan was trying to maintain his balance, some semblance of control, but it was bleeding out of him.

“We are going back into business, Jinghan,” said Peanut.

The other man tried to wrench himself away, hissing now.

“Get away from me!”

Peanut held him easily and walked him to the temple wall, pushed him hard up against the faded vermilion, a thick forearm against his throat. Wen’s eyes were blank, flecks of white spittle at the corners of his mouth. He’d stopped speaking. With his free hand, Peanut reached inside the overcoat.

“I have two letters here. One is to the head of the Launch Vehicle Academy. It says only that an employee was an agent for British Intelligence. No names. It’ll take them a while. If I send it, you’ve got time to get out.”

Wen Jinghan mouthed something incomprehensible.

“The second one is addressed to the Ministry of State Security and it denounces you by name. If I send this one, you’ll have no time.”

The professor sat on the pine needles. Wen Jinghan had shouted a little and then cried a little. He had implored, and babbled about his wife, his child. Which had led Peanut to a loss of temper, because, as he informed the professor, he had neither wife nor child, because he’d just spent two decades in a labor reform facility in the Qinghai desert, where marriage and joyful conjugal relations were not readily available. Peanut had relayed this forcefully and then delivered a thump to the distinguished
solar plexus and an open-handed, but still formidable, blow to the side of the silvered head. The professor had writhed on the ground for a while and then sat up, his silver hair awry, laced with pine needles, the tears flowing, snot hanging in strings from the distinguished nose.

Peanut stood, hands on hips, over him.

“This will go very fast. In a week, maybe two or three, it’ll be over. And you’ll never see me again.”

Silence. Labored professorial breathing.

“Now you’ll return to your car. You came by car, yes?”

A pause and then a nod. And Peanut knew he had him. And the future unfolded in Peanut’s mind.

“You’ll go back to your car and you’ll drive to the Launch Vehicle Academy, and you’ll get something good—something good, as a proof—and you’ll bring it to me tonight.”

The professor was looking down now and a strange mewling sound escaped him. Peanut knew to move on fast.

“What have you got in your office, Jinghan?”

The professor shook his head. “It’s all changed. It’s all on computer now. Classified networks.”

“You will find something on paper. What do you have on paper?”

“I knew you’d be back. I always knew you’d be back.”

“What do you have on paper?”

The professor pawed the pine needles, picked up a handful and let them trickle through his fingers. Then sighed. “Some reports. Two or three. But they’re all individually numbered. I can’t give them away. They’ll know.”

“Go to your office. Take one of the reports. The best one. Bring it to me tonight. Seven o’clock. At the corner of Jianwai Avenue and Dongdaqiao. Just north, on the left side of the street, there’s a big place with photocopiers. Bring it to me there. We’ll
copy it and then you’ll take it back. It’ll be out of your office for three hours.”

Wen Jinghan had closed his eyes and sat still.

“Are you back in contact with them?” he said.

“Yes,” Peanut lied. “And one other thing. Money. Bring me whatever money you can. As much as you can. Now get up.”

They walked back down the hillside in silence, skirting the temple, Wen Jinghan leading. Peanut smoked a cigarette, and spat. At the edge of the car park Peanut took the professor’s arm again. Wen Jinghan looked away, on the verge of tears.

“One more time. Seven o’clock, Jianwai Avenue and Dongdaqiao. I don’t need a huge pile of documents, just a proof. Go straight to the academy. Do not talk to anyone. Get this done and things will go fast. A week or two and you’re free and clear.”

The professor was unresponsive, looking into the middle distance.

“And remember those letters.”

The professor pulled away and walked across the car park, took his keys from his pocket, held them up. A whoop, and the lights flashed on a sleek blue Japanese sedan with darkened windows. Peanut stared, then jogged across the asphalt, catching the professor as he opened the car door.

“Is this really yours, Jinghan?”

Wen Jinghan forced a watery smile. “Yes.”

Peanut breathed out, looked around, and, seeing no one else in the car park, dealt the professor another vicious slap to the side of the head. The professor groaned and staggered against the side of the car.

“Don’t be late.”

The sedan pulled away. Peanut made a mental note of the license plate. Then he walked to the bus stop, where he waited,
disgusted, angry, ashamed and triumphant, for the number 931 bus.

Lunch with the Foreign Ministry, and a chewing-out, polite but loud and clear. Mangan and Harvey were summoned to an enormous circular table at the Golden Peak Seafood Village, on the twenty-second floor of a marbled block full of telecoms companies. Silent girls glided across red carpet to bring them hot towels and Eight Treasure Tea. Across the table sat three suited minions and the Foreign Ministry’s deputy spokeswoman, coiffed, who quietly cleared her throat.

“So. Mr. Mangan. Mr. Harvey.” Her English was excellent. “We do appreciate your coming today. It’s a pleasure to see you. And of course we follow your reporting very closely.”

“Thank you for inviting us, Madam Wang.” Harvey, massive in his suit, was trying to look ingratiating, which, thought Mangan, gave him the air of a scolded teenager.

“Now, let us be very frank with each other. We know you must report, and you are free to report in China. Of course.”

A pause and a knowing half-smile, as if to say, we all understand what that means, don’t we? “But other departments are sometimes rather quick to judge, let us say.”